Airlines prepare for record holiday travel

AccuWeather

Sean Cudahy, an aviation reporter with The Points Guy, was live on the AccuWeather Network on Dec. 19 to discuss what is expected to be a busy Christmas holiday travel period.

Transcript

00:00It's all right. Airlines are projecting record numbers of air travelers this holiday season.

00:05Here are some tips on helping your trip go smoothly. Sean Cuddy,

00:08aviation reporter for The Point Sky. Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

00:13Hi, good morning. Happy holidays.

00:15Happy holidays.

00:16How are airlines preparing for these record numbers of travelers?

00:22You know, it's really something that they have dealt with over the course of

00:25this entire year. We saw the 10 busiest days ever at U.S. airports this summer between Memorial Day

00:31and Labor Day, and that trend really continued all throughout Thanksgiving,

00:34the busiest day ever at U.S. airports on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So, you know,

00:38airlines have really, over the last couple of years, hired to levels that we haven't seen in

00:43decades. We've also seen airlines invest a whole lot of money into kind of the IT infrastructure

00:50to make those apps better so that when there's, you know, a problem, you're getting more

00:53notifications. They've introduced kind of new bag tracking tools. So really, the airlines feeling

00:59like they are set to go for this holiday season. And over Thanksgiving, you know, in large part,

01:05we saw pretty smooth sailing operations across the country.

01:09Now, we were talking about the weather, okay, and the apps and how they're improved. What can

01:14you do if weather impacts your flight if it's weather? And are airlines required to offer

01:20compensation if a flight is canceled or delayed?

01:25I'll take the second part of that first. So with respect to compensation, when bad weather is

01:30involved, a lot of the time you can kind of be out of luck. Airlines have promised to provide

01:35certain guarantees like, you know, overnight lodging, you know, meal vouchers, ground

01:40transportation coverage when you get stranded somewhere. But generally, that's going to be when

01:44it's a disruption that is the airline's responsibility. A lot of time, bad weather,

01:49that's going to be kind of out of their control, or at least that's how it's viewed.

01:52Now, there were some new federal regulations that were passed this year that make refunds

01:58automatic for passengers. You may have heard about that codified by Congress earlier this year. But

02:02that really only applies if you decide not to travel. Under federal policy, you're owed a refund

02:08for the unused portion of your ticket. If you choose to not accept rebooking, you just say,

02:14I'm going to stay home at this point. But you know, over the holidays, obviously, you're going

02:17to want to get to your destination typically. So you probably are going to accept rebooking.

02:22So you know, a lot of time, you know, you can be a little bit more out of luck if it when bad

02:26weather gets involved. I just learned a lot. Thank you. All right. So Christmas and New

02:30Year's both falling midweek. Does that spread out the busiest travel days?

02:35It does. You think about Thanksgiving, we saw the busiest day ever. It's more compressed into

02:39that timeline. Christmas, New Year's going to be kind of more spread out over a couple weeks there.

02:44We expect to just see pretty sustained volume over that period of time. You know, I was at

02:51Newark Airport last night, it was already getting pretty busy. And that's a week out from Christmas.

02:55You see some of the crowds in the terminals in video here. Yeah, it's I think it's just going

03:00to be a couple really busy weeks at airports. So those TSA agents certainly going to be dealing

03:04with big crowds at the checkpoints. And you should plan ahead if you are headed to the airport.

03:09And what are some smart tips to plan ahead to make sure your trip is as smooth as possible?

03:16Yeah, we talked about that app. I always like to have my airline app handy. Also,

03:20just, you know, if you haven't flown in a while, like play around with it. Airlines have made

03:24a lot of changes to their apps in recent months. So make sure you're familiar with it.

03:28A lot of the time, if there's a disruption, if your flight gets delayed because of a snowstorm

03:32or something like that, and you're going to miss your connection, a lot of time the airline may

03:35accept or offer you a rebooking option right there in the palm of your hand,

03:40you can make that change right there. Also, air tags. If you're checking bags,

03:44air tags can help you see the real time location of your bags. A couple of airlines just in the

03:49last few weeks have integrated the air tags into their bag tracking software. So it makes it a

03:55pretty robust tracking option. So you can kind of know exactly where your bag is at all times.

04:00I also suggest download the MyTSA app. That'll give you a kind of real time look at what the

04:06checkpoint wait times are like. The TSA says they did, you know, even during that really busy summer,

04:11they kept wait times for the standard lanes to 30 minutes or less, 10 minutes or less on average for

04:16pre-check. But still, you know, at any given time, you get a big bank of flights, a big crowd,

04:22those wait times can start to add up a bit. Excellent information. And we hope everyone

04:27has a very safe travel time this holiday, including aviation reporter for The Point Sky,

04:31Sean Cuddy. Thanks again so much for joining us and really informing us this morning. Thank you.

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