After canceling thousands of flights over the weekend due to a giant blizzard, airlines will attempt to get passengers back in the air and to their destinations on Monday.
But more than 1,300 flights are canceled across the country today and a lot of people will likely find themselves without canceled flights, but still stuck at the airport.
Here are two things to do if you’re left at the gate with time on your hands.
1. Explore.
Lots of airports have art exhibits displaying the work of national or local artists. Some have full-blown aviation museums (SFO & MKE), and many have an exhibit case or two filled with tidbits of local history. San Francisco International Airport has both an aviation museum and an exhibit program that mounts 20 exhibits around the airport at any one time.
Right now the SFO Museum has exhibits about football, vintage purses and Toy Story.
Aliens – Courtesy of Pixar Animation Studios
2. Eat
While you weren’t paying attention, airports across the country have upped their game when it comes to food. Take a walk, inspect all the menus and take yourself out for a nice meal.
And if you’re lucky enough to be stuck in Chicago at O’Hare or Midway Airports, keep in mind that both airports are celebrating Airport Restaurant Week through February 2.
In advance of a projected historic winter blizzard, airlines have canceled more than 2,300 flights for today and shut down operations in many airports entirely.
The story will repeat tomorrow.
Here’s FlightAware’s Misery Map from this morning, showing Charlotte with most canceled flights – but it will just get worse – much worse – throughout the day.
Best advice: don’t even chance getting stuck at the airport today. Take your airline’s offer to change your flight. Stay home. Stay warm. And, if you’re in a place where the blizzard hits – check on your neighbors.
HotelsbyDay.com is a site that helps travelers find good rates for short stays at hotels during the day.
These aren’t the, ahem, one-hour or less kind of stays. The service offers stays of at least four hours in three-, four- and five-star hotels, enabling a traveler to rest and refresh before or after a long flight, get some work done in a quiet and comfortable space between meetings or, perhaps, for a family to have a “daycation” at a hotel with a pool, waterpark and spa.
The site has a search option for airport hotels and on that list you’ll find the Miami International Airport Hotel (located inside the terminal) – offered during my search for $55 for a four hour stay between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. – and the post-security Minute Suites – DFW, offered at $100 for a four hour block between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m., $110 between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. and $120 between 3 a.m. and 7 p.m.
I called to check and compare walk-in rates as was told there is not a posted rate at the DFW Minute Suites for a 4 hour stay, but that, with taxes, a 3.5 hour stay would cost about $134 and a 5 hour stay, $148. So the HotelsbyDay rate does indeed offer some savings.
As the writer of the Stuck at The Airport blog (which was first a book way back in 2001), people often ask me which airports are best for layovers.
My answer is often “it depends.”
No matter how many amenities an airport has – and with spas, movie theaters, beer gardens, ice-skating rinks, napping nooks, gyms and art museums the list of possibilities is getting quite long – if you’re in a hurry to get somewhere, no airport is a good place to find yourself waiting.
But if you’ve got a few hours to spend on a layover, airports are increasingly doing their best to make you comfortable and entertained.
Have a favorite? Through November 3 you can vote (daily) on which airport you think is the best airport for a layover as part of the 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards feature on USA TODAY, where I helped choose 20 nominees.
Let me know what you think of the choices and which airport you would have added to this list.
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 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.
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.
