|
When traveling by air, there is nothing worse than a delayed flight. While maintenance and weather delays can happen at any time, layovers can be planned for. Bad layovers can either be too short or way too long. What airport the layover is at is another significant factor in making a layover acceptable or bad. The only time a layover can be successfully planned for and/or avoided is while making ticket reservations. Scheduling a trip by air can be a confusing jumble of information and rapidly fluctuating prices. When available, always try to find a direct flight which then removes the whole issue of bad layovers from the travel itinerary. Since direct flights are not always available, some layovers have to be tolerated.
The first form that bad layovers can take is in being way too long. Generally, these long layovers occur when switching from a mainstream flight, such as from Chicago to Atlanta, to a smaller regional flight, such as from Atlanta to Augusta. Lets face it, nobody wants to sit and wait for 5 hours in any airport to catch their next flight. However, depending on your destination, sometimes these long layovers are inevitable. As an alternative, driving from the large airport to the final destination is sometimes more time efficient than waiting out an excessive layover. These long layovers can normally be avoided by careful itinerary planning.
The other form that bad layovers can take is in being way too short. This does not allow sufficient time to get from one departure gate to the next. Spotting these short, bad layovers is not as easy as it might seem. The trick is finding a happy medium in which the layover provides sufficient time to catch your next flight, but also doesn’t keep you waiting needlessly for many hours.
For the business traveler, unless you are prepared to go for a hard run and cannot get a direct flight, plan a layover of AT LEAST 45 minutes at any of the major airline hub airports, such as Chicago-O’Hare, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Denver, due to their excessively long concourses. It is possible, I tried this personally, to get away with as little as a 30 minute layover in Atlanta and still catch a flight without running. This is due to Atlanta’s rather convenient terminal layout and tram system. On the flip side, I have also missed flights with an hour layover in Cincinnati because of an excessive amount of people waiting to catch the bus from either terminal A or B going to terminal C. In my personal experience I have found that a layover between one and one and a half hours usually works out nicely. This way you don’t have an excessively long layover, but you still have plenty of time to find the next departure gate and as an added bonus this also builds a little cushion of time into your schedule (except in Cincinnati, plan for a two hour layover), which is very nice should your first flight of the day be delayed. If you are in the field service industry, I recommend a layover of no less than one hour. This is due to the fact that most airlines will make you sign a waiver if you have short layover times and have checked luggage, such as tool bags, since the airlines usually require a layover of 30-45 minutes to guarantee that your luggage will get on the same flight as you. There is nothing more inconvenient than arriving at your destination without your tools.
For the vacation traveler, do not accept any layover shorter than one and a half hours. This extra time gives you the time to find your next departure gate at your leisure, and gives you a time cushion in case your first flight was delayed at takeoff. Also, the extra time is highly desirable if you are travelling with children.
If you are traveling by yourself, such as for business, plan a layover of no less than 45 minutes. If your are travelling with a group or with kids plan on at least 90 minutes. Remembering this rule will normally (nothing is 100% in the airline industry) prevent you from having to run any marathons through airport terminals.
|
| |
