I am reposting this from a good friend who is a seasoned fligh | Dr. Tenpenny
I am reposting this from a good friend who is a seasoned flight attendant.
Just some good advice for those who plan to travel this summer:
Flying this summer is ROUGH!!! I feel like as a Flight Attendant I should attempt to share some tips to get you through airline travel for the foreseeable future.
1. Things are not good..... if its less than 7 hours - DRIVE! I'm not kidding. There is nothing enjoyable about flying right now. On any airline. If you must fly, keep reading.
2. Download and use the app of the airline you are flying. You can do everything on it - get your boarding pass, track your bags, see your incoming plane, and change a flight. It sure beats waiting in the long line to talk to an agent! Trust me - Usually these apps will tell you a flight is cancelled before the crew even knows!
3. Fly MUCH earlier than you need to - a whole day early if its important!! This week I saw many people miss important things like weddings, funerals, cruises, international connections, and graduations. The tears were very real, for very real reasons, and there was nothing I could do! If you have to be somewhere, spend the extra money, go a day early. Have a glass of wine and stay in a hotel, enjoy your night not being stressed while everyone else misses their events.
4. ALWAYS fly the first flight in the morning so you have all day to be rebooked if the shit hits the fan. Yes, that means it might be a 3:00 alarm, but morning flights don't cancel nearly as often.
5. This is not unique to this year, but keep in mind summer is thunderstorm season. A single storm can shut down a whole airport. We can't fly through them. Storms usually build as the day gets later. Book early flights!
6. Schedule long layovers - Your 1 hour layover is NOT enough anymore. 30 minutes, not a chance. 3 hours minimum.
7. What you see on the news is an understatement. We are short staffed and overworked. Not just pilots and flight attendants, but also ground crews. Without ground crews there is no one to park the planes, drive jetways, get your bags on/off planes, or scan boarding passes. This causes many delays that snowball throughout the day. Sometimes HOURS.(Another reason morning flights are best!)
8. When flight crews get delayed we time out. We can NOT fly longer than 16 hours. Its illegal. So it doesn't matter if you have a wedding to get to, when we are done we are done. The way things are now, there are no back up crews, so when this happens your flight cancels. (Now you are starting to see why those morning flights are best!)
9. Avoid connecting in Newark. It is literal hell. You have a 50/50 chance your flight will cancel or missing your connection. They have been cancelling flights at their starting points just to keep the planes out of Newark because there just aren't enough people to manage the planes, so the gates stay full. Also the restaurants are expensive, it is not a great place to be stuck.
10. Be nice. As stated above, we are overworked and tired. We will not help you if you are mean. No one cares that you are going to miss your cruise if you are an asshole. So even if we can help, we will save our help for someone nice. Tensions are high. Our patience is gone. If you make us mad - you will not be flying on our planes. We will leave you behind without a second thought, and laugh about you later.
11. Being drunk on an airplane is a federal offense, so don't overdo it. If you drink too much at the bar waiting for your delayed flight you risk not being allowed to fly at all. We are too tired to deal with your drunk ass when we have legitimate issues to deal with.
12. Get trip insurance if you have a lot of money invested. I hate the whole idea of this, but I also hate the idea of losing money. Example: I was working a flight yesterday that waited over an hour for a gate. A family of 8 missed their flight to Rome. The only flight of the day. They were going to a cruise which they would now miss. They were all crying, there was nothing I could do.
