Non Region Specific Airport preferences based on convenience

[ADKmel]

Should have driven!

hopefully next year i can take a long drive and stop at lots of Mts. This year i'm avoiding 1 leg and a 3am wake up by going from ABQ to Steamboat..

 

[VickieH]

I spend a lot of time in Denver. I find the drive to DIA..particularly with traffic to be insufferable

For my recent trip, I took the earliest flight out from DIA. Leaving home by 3 AM, there's no traffic. Only things that slowed me down were (1) waiting for the SW employees to arrive at work at 4 AM and check my bag and (2) DIA having only one security area open at that hour. [I am not a morning person so this kind of schedule that included a connection was pretty painful.]

My other good option is getting a later flight, parking at the RTD lot and taking the train up.

 

[locknload]

How do you avoid O'Hare and stick with United? (From New England, pretty much every single United flight goes to O'Hare before you can go anywhere west of the Mississippi. I'm exaggerating slightly, but not much. P.S.: Newark is even worse.)



For me it depends on what the ground travel is like. If "traveling on the ground" means sitting amid the oil tanks and general post-apocalyptic wasteland that is Revere, Massachusetts, on the way to Logan, in an interminable traffic jam, on a gray and drizzly day in February, so I can park my car five miles from the airport, pay through the nose for the privilege, and then wait for a shuttle in the rain, so I can stand in a HUGE line to check my skis ... no.

IF I have to connect going across the country...Denver is way more reliable for me. Coast to coast..I'm definitely going non-stop. As you point....its all relative based on what you have to face on the ground. Your O'Hare I guess is my Denver...so its relative. Denver almost never shuts down and its central location has a ton of a flights in and out.

 

[Tony S]

I guess my frustration with the the thread title and with many of the posts - which is to say, with the state of air travel - is that they imply a level of "choice" which IME doesn't really exist. When I'm going to the Rockies and need to be in a certain place at a certain time, my options are very limited, and it's simply a matter of choosing which one is the least bad. I readily acknowledge that living in the far upper right hand corner of the country plays a major role in this. I'm literally at the end of the line.

 

[James]

I've had 2 winter flights have to circle Chicago in the winter for more than an hour, one that had to be diverted to Indianapolis before fuel got too low. At least they were no plane change.

A few years ago I made the mistake of booking a trip to Paris through Montreal in February. I guess I was deluded by lack of snow at the time. So of course there was a major snow storm and Montreal was closed. It did work out as I got a direct ftom Newark.

Only things that slowed me down were (1) waiting for the SW employees to arrive at work at 4 AM

Note to self-
Remember not to order a sausage and egg sandwich at Dunkin Donuts when they open at 5:30 am the LGA terminal.
Two hours later on the way to DIA and I was preparing the air sickness bag, starting to get the tunnel vision/spots. Fortunately the worst didn’t happen.

 

[Tony S]

Remember not to order a sausage and egg sandwich at Dunkin Donuts when they open at 5:30 am the LGA terminal.

These days you are VERY lucky to get ANY food at the airport early in the morning. Last few times I've flown out of Portland either Starbucks was open with an interminable line, or NO ONE was open. (Signs saying no staff.) None of the other food vendors was open. Their stalls had the air of "we've given up."