If you followed the blizzard that clobbered the Northeastern United States, you may have noticed that airlines began suggesting that you could change your flight and leave *early* to avoid the disruptions and without penalty.  While I believe this has been done before, airlines clearly got the message out much better and in a much more timely fashion than in the past. 

The new DOT rule limiting tarmac delays to 3 hours or less (with exceptions for safety or in the event  a return to gate would massively disrupt airport operations) was announced Monday and takes effect 120 days after being published in the Federal Register. 

The movements against the airlines for these lengthy delays on tarmac have gained considerable momentum and airline have taken a real hit publicity-wise over these disruptions.  Combine that with the message that the DOT sent by fining Continental, ExpressJet and Mesaba over the lengthy delay in Rochester, MN earlier this year, and you’ve got a lot of pressure on the airlines to do the right thing in advance of problems.

Take advantage of it and be creative.  If you see the potential to be delayed or stuck in an unfamiliar city trying to travel somewhere, call the airline and re-book your travel through cities likely to be unaffected by the weather.  If you were in Virginia and scheduled to fly to Europe via a northeastern gateway city such as Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., New York City or Boston, you could have re-booked to travel via Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Dallas or Houston.  Now, that seems like going out of your way but is it?  Not really.  Travel to any one of those other gateway cities would take about as long as it would to go to your original gateway city.  Travel to Europe from one of those other gateway cities isn’t substantively longer than traveling from the northeast.   Yes, you’ll spend, perhaps, another hour or two in the air in total time but you’ll get to your destination and you won’t lose the use of that valuable vacation time. 

Flexibility is the number one solution to problems that arise from weather.  With the airlines’ willingness to accomodate you that much earlier with a change in flight plans, you can beat the odds and still make your trip.

Filed under: Travel Hints by ajax