Air travel mess!

my son got stuck in houston for 16 hours.. thunderstorms. I have taken 5 flights with no problems.

My DD’s flight was canceled today, next available is tomorrow.

In Norway many people wanted to spend this post-Covid summer abroad. It was difficult for very many of them. A lot of employees in the air travel industry were let go during the pandemic. It has taken some time to get the industry fully staffed, and I believe there is a way to go. We saw photos of chaos from Heathrow airport because of difficulties managing the amount of luggage going through. It was a similar situation in Norway. In addition, our biggest airline had a pilot's strike, starting July 4th. They sure knew how to time their strike. A lot of people were stranded in their holiday destinations all over Europe, people were stuck at the Oslo airport for days, they lost their entire vacations.... It has been a hot mess.
The strike is over, and the air traffic is normalizing. But I am happy we travelled without luggage, on a direct flight, with a non-striking airline.

People were leaving the country in droves. I am sure there is a huge vacation migration in the US aswell. Not just to go on holiday, but I suspect a lot of people have a need to visit family and is using the summer for that.
I would be driving if possible!

We've been incredibly lucky! Our international flights have all gone smoothly - hopefully will hold true in end of August as well. I've posted before, but my kids have had a few hiccups coming and going from their universities. We're definitely part of the horde of people with serious pent up wanderlust - we made all our plans with the mindset that planes would be crowded, staff would be overworked and anything could happen - but if we could make it to our destination safely, it's worth it. As I said, it's gone pretty darn smoothly, so am happy to finally be visiting places again!

I have flown twice this year and neither time had any problems.

DD has made some business trips to Chicago and a few Canadian cities this summer with no issues. Hoping her luck holds as she heads back to Chicago tomorrow. She is doing a trip to Rome in August. After all the reports about the issues in Amsterdam which was her first choice, she opted for Rome. Hopefully her routing over will work out. She's flying direct to Munich, then on to Rome after a 3.5 hr layover. Coming home is back through Chicago, but she's not concerned about getting stuck there since she knows it well. Knowing her she would just try to arrange a visit with a client!

I've only flown once this year to a family funeral in Northeast PA. The flights were packed but no issues thankfully. I did have 3 hr. layovers in Newark coming and going. It's never been my favorite airport, but this year it is a real sh!t show. DH and I are celebrating our 45th anniversary in a couple of weeks and normally would take a big trip. This year we are pushing it back to the Fall in hopes that things improve with travel.

It is a big mess. However, we never travel during this time. Everyone in Europe seems to go on holiday between mid July and mid August! The crowds are huge and it’s hot. We deliberately planned to ship out our household goods in mid August and then take a holiday after that.

DD came over for a month. Her flight was delayed leaving the US but not much else went amiss. Going back, her flight was canceled and rebooked with two layovers. It seems that United canceled their non stop flight from Amsterdam to Dulles. We were able to change the flight again to fly out of Brussels nonstop instead. That flight was also delayed, but she made it back to DC and had her luggage too. If anyone remembers her saga with her lost luggage in May 2020 that they found 5 months later in Equador, this situation was much improved!

I’m not travelling this summer since I just had foot surgery. And I’m glad. I’ve heard horror stories from people connecting thru Toronto. One friend went to Italy for two weeks. Her husbands luggage went to Spain instead, and sat there. Her luggage never made it past Toronto and she picked it up on her way home. Another friend was trying to get to NYC. Multiple delays and cancellations in Toronto finally made them say fuck this. They turned around and came home. It’s been a nightmare for so many people.

I traveled to PDX (Portland, OR) twice to visit DDs (& meet new grandchild!) - once in early April (direct flight, less than $700, no issues/delays/cancellations), and once in early July. On the most recent trip, it was $300+ more, could not get a direct flight, could not get my preferred airline, and even then my flights were cancelled - they were automatically re-booked at similar enough times, but with different connections and smaller layover windows. Even so, everything worked out and I had no issues during the travel itself; it just took longer than it would have with a direct flight. Through pure luck, I even scored empty seats beside me on all legs of the trip. I didn't check any luggage except 1 carry-on bag for the flight home when they were asking for volunteers to check bags at no cost. I was worried about checking a bag after hearing/reading all the horror stories of tons of lost luggage...so I kept my backpack with me with all the important stuff. My homeward bound carry-on bag was mostly laundry anyway, LOL. I live less than 15 minutes from the airport and I figured if the bag was delayed in getting back to me I'd just get to wait a few days to do the laundry.

ETA: DS flew internationally with no issues in mid-June, but that was before the heat wave, EU strike (?), and before the influx of massive hordes of vacationers. I think he just missed it.

We don't travel during the summer, but several kids at my camp have and they have had some delays. One kid's family ended up being 2 days late home. Fortunately they were in DC so they had plenty to do and it was easy for them to get a place to stay.
My cousin had a hell of a time getting from Seattle to Portland and wishes she had just rented a car and driven herself. Unfortunately most of the drama happened after they had loaded various planes and they were stuck.

We’ve flown twice this year, Europe, without issues but that was in spring and long before the schools broke up. We won’t travel now until (hopefully) the autumn and that’ll be long haul and it won’t be peak season so 🤞🤞

I fly on the regular, and rarely encounter problems.  

The people that are encountering problems, mostly, are the ones who are booking through third party aggregators, and booking on the low cost transports.  For that, I don't necessarily give a crap.  Book the cheapest flight on the cheapest airline through the cheapest third party source?  Well. . . good luck to ya.  Allegient Airlines doesn't have your comfort in mind.  Sorry.  

We traveled to Italy the last 2 weeks in May. Going over we had no problems at all. Flights were on time. We are light travelers so tend not to check luggage so lost luggage wasn't an issue. Coming back home was another story. We came back the Saturday of Memorial Weekend. Our flight out of Italy was delayed 6 hours, which made us miss our connecting flight. The only connecting flight that wasn't already sold out didn't get us home until after midnight. A 15 hour journey home ended up taking 25 hours and we were exhausted!

DH travels for business quite a bit. Most of his flights have had minor delays, but nothing too bad. Yet!

Great! Good to know!