flight delays

Stuck at the airport? Lucky you!

Airport guides, Airport shops, Airports, Food,

As the person who wrote a book about being Stuck at the Airport (it was published eight weeks before 9/11 and, as you might imagine, was not a big seller) and who now writes this Stuck at The Airport blog, it was a delight to be asked to round-up advice about the best airports for stranded travelers for this month’s At the Airport column on USA TODAY.

Feel free to add notes in the comment section below about which airports you’d be happily stranded in….

Traveler by Duane Hanson_at Orlando Intl

Traveler – by Duane Hanson, at Orlando International Airport

Earlier this month a tsunami of snowstorms and bitter cold air (the so-called “polar vortex”) forced the pre-emptive and day-of cancellation of tens of thousands of flights and hours-long delays for thousands of others.

That wacky weather also left plenty of passengers stuck at airports large and small.

No traveler (well, except me … ) enjoys spending more time in airport terminals than they have to, but weather, mechanical issues and other snafus are simply a fact of modern-day flying.

In some airports the wait can be more than pleasant than in others. So we asked frequent travelers to help us make a list of the best airports to be stranded in.

Dana Freeman of Burlington, Vt., said she never minds spending a few extra hours at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. “It has great local food, free Wi-Fi, clean spaces, and they got the architecture just right; the main space is voluminous and gets in plenty of light, making it feel really big for a medium-sized airport.”

With 23 concerts at various venues throughout the terminal each week, AUS also leads the list of airports that keep delayed travelers entertained with live performances that help time fly by.

Amanda Castleman is happy to wait out a delay at her hometown airport, Seattle-Tacoma International, “Thanks to the free Wi-Fi, good restaurants, Vino Volo, Butter London nail salon, the Massage Bar, etc.”

Here are some of the other airports – and airport amenities – that help travelers find the upside of being stranded.

Stress-busting amenities

Francine Cohen, a New York-based hospitality industry consultant, is keen on Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) for the rocking chairs, a stress-busting amenity found also at airports in Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia, Houston, Sacramento and other cities.

“They provide a great sense of calm when you’re stuck” said Cohen, “Not only because rocking is soothing,” but because the chairs offer a great perch for watching planes take off and land and people stream by.

CLT also got the nod from frequent travelers for the Terminal Getaway Spa, which will be opening three new branches at Chicago’s O’Hare airport and one at Orlando International Airport in the next few weeks.

The massages, manicures, pedicures and other services offered by XpresSpa, Massage Bar and other companies with multiple or one-off airport locations also factor into which airport many travelers are willing to wait out a delay. But whenever Stephanie Caro of Houston has extra hours to spend at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, she heads straight for Minute Suites on Concourse B. The small rooms for napping or working rent by the hour and are also available at Philadelphia International and DFW airports.

Yoga rooms also scored high on the list of amenities that helped make airport delays bearable and these are currently available at DFW Airport, Chicago O’Hare, Vermont’s Burlington International Airport and at San Francisco International, which is opening its second space devoted to yoga on Jan. 28, in United Airlines’ renovated Boarding Area E.

Kid-friendly spaces

Sally Farhat Kassab loves “the huge selection of shops and the interesting people from around the world that I meet every time” she’s at London’s Heathrow Airport and appreciates the “Stay & Play” areas staffed by “play coordinators” who host craft activities and storytelling sessions and help parents keep an eye on their kids.

I haven’t found any U.S. airports with play attendants on duty, but the kids’ activity centers offered by airports in cities such as Dallas/Fort Worth, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Cincinnati and Las Vegas got raves from parents who have needed to entertain children during a delay. The new beach-themed play area in the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) at Los Angeles International Airport is gathering fans as well.

Best for eating and drinking

When you’re dashing between flights, a grab-n-go sandwich will often do. But when you’re hanging around an airport for hours, there’s time to focus on where to dine.

USA TODAY readers weighed in via a USA TODAY/10Best.com poll that gave high marks to Vino Volo (with branches in more than 20 airports), the Salt Lick Bar-B-Que at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, the healthy seasonal Southern California comfort food at Lemonade in LAX and all things crab at Obrycki’s at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

One Flew South, serving “Southernational” cuisine (and great sushi) is a perennial favorite at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, but flight attendant Heather Poole said she’s always happy to wait out a delay at Miami International Airport because then she can visit her favorite restaurant there, La Carreta, for Cuban food. “I’d skip any first-class meal for that,” she said.

The “best” airport food and beverage outlets have also been sliced and diced by everyone from the Moodie Report to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, The Daily Meal, and GQ.

Art, culture and history

Passengers can kill time during a delay reading books, watching movies or catching up on e-mail, of course, but those willing to venture from their gates will be rewarded with intriguing art and/or history exhibits at many airports. Miami, San Diego, Phoenix, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Seattle, and New York’s Albany International Airport are among the airports with great art programs or in-house museums, as are the airports that made it onto this USA TODAY/10Best.com best U.S. airports for art list.

Escape planning

When a delay stretches from minutes to hours, a canceled flight can’t be far behind. That’s when an airport that can be easily escaped from has its charms.

Miami International, Chicago O’Hare, DFW, Orlando, Tampa, Detroit and Houston’s George Bush International are among the airports with hotels connected to the terminals, making that fresh start in the morning a bit easier to imagine. And Seattle, Portland, Ore., Atlanta, Boston, Miami, Chicago and Washington, D.C., are among the cities offering easy and inexpensive public transit to and from town.

Did I miss your favorite? If you “had” to get stranded at an airport, which would you choose, and why? Feel free to add your comments below.

We’ve already heard from Andrew Smith – the Chief Funster for New South Wales (and winner of the NSW Best Job in the World promotion).  He’s fine with hanging out for hours at the Sydney Airport because there are pubs serving Aussie beer, a Lonely Planet concept store and a mini-museum of uniforms, navigational equipment and other memorabilia from Qantas.

Bad day for Alaska Airlines

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We all know how irritating it is when our the internet signal goes down in our home or office.

Magnify that feeling times a bazillion and you probably won’t be anywhere near what Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air and their customers across the country had to deal with when the the connection to the ticketing system was lost at around 7:30 a.m. PT on Monday morning due what turned out to be two severed fiber optic lines in the Sprint network.

“Sprint provides the airlines with connectivity to SABRE, the system the carriers use for reservations, to check in passengers and to purchase tickets,” the airline explained.

It took a while to figure that out, but right away what that meant for travelers at more than 60 airports – especially Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where about half the flights are on those airlines – was long lines, hours of waiting, flight delays, cancellation and more waiting as airline staff tried to figure out what they could get done by hand.

Here are some of the photos Sandy Ward, from the Future of Flight sent from her vantage point this morning at Sea-Tac airport:

Manual ticketing was the order of the day. Anyone remember the days when the airlines had little stickers that represented your seat assignments?

There was one upside of the Alaska Airlines internet outage: because no one could check in for their flights, there was a short line at the security checkpoint.

Alaska Airlines said its internet service was restored by early afternoon, but the damage had already been done: as of noon, Alaska and Horizon had already canceled 70 flights and disrupted the travel day of more than 6,000 passengers. And, the airline said, although more than 130 flights had departed by noon, some of those flights were up to four hours late.

It’s understandable that travelers are upset. Especially those who missed important connections, meetings and social events and those who stood around for hours without accurate information about what was going on.

Alaska Airlines says it’s going to try to make it up to them. On the Sprint Network Outage page on its website, the airline is offering to waive change fees for those with tickets for travel on October 8th and 9th. And in an apology to travelers, the airline is encouraging those whose plans were significantly disrupted to get in touch with the Customer Care Team where, we might assume, some reparations will be made.

Let’s hope thing get back to normal on Tuesday.

Sailboat delays flights at BOS; birds invade PHL

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Courtesy UW Digital Collections, via Flickr Commons

In the past, flights have been delayed and airport runways closed by everything from weather, turtles on their way to lay eggs  and a flamingo named Ringo.

But on it’s Facebook page Monday, Boston Logan Airport alerted travelers that delays were being caused by a sailboat…

An unmanned 37-foot sailboat broke free from its Winthrop mooring and ran aground off Runway 27, resulting in a closure of Runway 9 for departures. As a result, planes are taking off and landing on Runway 4R and flights arriving and departing Logan may experience delays. Crews are working to free the sailboat.

An hour later, the airport posted a status update:

Runway 9 is back in use; the mast of the sailboat is no longer an obstruction to aviation.

Diversions of a different kind are now taking place at Philadelphia International Airport.

“The Academy Takes Flight,” is an exhibit featuring 54 bird mounts from the ornithological collection of more than 200,000 bird specimens at the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University.

Passengers can not only see the birds – they can hear them: buttons activate bird calls from 6 distinct species: the Lyrebird, Rufous Hornbill, Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo, Cooper’s Hawk, Great-horned Owl, and Laughing Kookaburra.

Find the birds on the walkway between Terminals C and D through November, 2012.

NY-area airports want to fine unruly passengers for flight delays

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Here’s an intriguing idea: the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates JFK, LaGuardia and Newark International airports, wants to sue unruly passengers who cause major flight delays.  This is the story I wrote Monday for msnbc.com.

 

Unruly airline passengers at any of the three New York area airports (JFK, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty) may soon have to go to court and pay for the cost of delaying a flight.

“On a regular basis we’re having issues where planes have to come back to the gate because of disruptive passengers,” said Steve Coleman, spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the three airports. “We’re looking to cut down on the number of incidents that require police response and reduce the amount of time and money airlines lose because of these incidents.”

Coleman said the airport authority is embarking on a campaign that will include the use of social media, posted signs and other methods to strongly remind passengers to behave and follow the instruction of airline crewmembers.

“Our lawyers are also looking at ways we can take civil action against the most egregious cases,” said Coleman.

The cost per hour to operate a U.S. passenger airline is $5,867, according to Airlines for America (A4A), the airline trade association. “So any delay represents a real cost to an airline’s bottom line,” said A4A spokesperson Steve Lott. If the new policy is enacted, the Port Authority might sue passengers responsible for a delay to pay for the related costs.

In 2011, there were 1.3 million flights at the New York area airports and Port Authority and police responded to close to 400 incidents involving disruptive airline passengers. “Most of those were due to people who wouldn’t turn off their electronic devices, which is a federal law,” said Coleman. Many other incidents were related to smoking and passenger disputes.

“And it’s not just a New York thing,” said Coleman. “This resonates with airports across the country.”

Research conducted by the Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) shows that passengers often blame the airport for airline-related delays. “So, certainly the discussion the Port Authority is having is likely to prompt other airports to think about this,” said Debby McElroy, ACI-NA’s executive vice president, policy and external affairs.

The incidents-to-flights ratio at the New York area airports and elsewhere “is actually quite low, but any effort that helps enforce the message of what the laws are will help,” said A4A’s Lott.

Brandon M. Macsata, executive director of the Association for Airline Passenger Rights, said he applauds efforts to reduce airline delays, but it seems somewhat unfair to single out airline passengers for systemwide problems. “There can be numerous reasons why passengers might be responsible for delayed flights, including what happened two weeks ago when a family was escorted off the plane because their daughter wouldn’t stop crying.”

Passengers who interfere with the duties of a crewmember and engage in unruly behavior can be fined by the FAA or prosecuted on criminal charges. Reporting incidents to the FAA is at the discretion of crewmembers, and in 2011, as of October, the agency had taken action on 127 incidents nationwide.

“The Port Authority has not contacted the FAA. So we are unaware of their plans,” said FAA spokesperson Alison Duquette. “The bottom line is that people should know if they behave badly on an airplane they can go to jail or be fined.”

What do you think? Should airports be able to levy fines on unruly passengers who cause airplanes to return to the gate?