Summer travel tips

News 8 is On Your Side, helping you avoid summer travel problems – including flight delays and cancelations.Travel advisor Greta Smith explained why this summer travel season has been such a challenge.”We’ve got a perfect storm of this major amount of pent-up demand in conjunction with airlines that really had ramped down,” she said.Smith said airlines lost a lot of employees during the pandemic, but consumers didn’t lose their desire to travel.”A lot of folks really kind of came back out of it realizing that life is not as long as we sometimes think it is, and they want to do the things they want to do right now,” she said.So, if you want to get to where you’re going, pay a little extra and buy a nonstop ticket to your destination.”You’re going to do a lot better because 99.9% of the time, if you can get in the air on a nonstop flight, you’re going to end up where you meant to be,” Smith said.When you buy your ticket, avoid buying through travel websites that display many different flight options.”So, they’re a great research tool for you to be able to compare the flight schedules and the costs that are available. However, I always strongly recommend that you purchase your ticket through the airline directly,” Smith said.Then consider downloading that airline’s app to your smartphone for direct communication with the airline as you travel.Another flight tip: Travel as early in the day as you can. Planes are usually at the airport first thing in the morning, and there’s less likelihood of those flights being delayed.”You want to try to book that first or second flight out because if you do get delayed it’s lots of opportunity to get the plane into the air during the day,” Smith said.Always buy travel insurance. Also consider flight delay insurance, which covers any costs you incur while your travel is delayed.

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