Travel plan idea blog

Bad travel rules and missing flights

Christopher Elliott talks about a few unfair travel rules in this article including one traveler who got to the airport two hours early but missed her flight because American Airlines didn't have enough ticket agents and wouldn't let her move forward in line. Then American wanted $2600 more a flight the following day. Maybe American Airlines really is evil.

I usually like to arrive many hours early - I can't relax until I've gone through security and am waiting at my gate 3 or more hours before boarding time. My wife is the opposite - She doesn't like waiting so wants to arrive at the airport as late as we can get away with. I blame her for us missing our flight from Paris to Seoul. She was so determined to get the tax refund before leaving Europe that we missed our flight. The funny - scary - thing is that she still argues with me when I say we need to get to the airport extra early. That situation was slightly different since it wasn't about when we arrived at the airport but still - 30 minutes before departure and she thought we could leave the security area and find the tax refund people and get back in time (not exactly in time but she was confident the flight wouldn't depart on time anyway).

Apparently in Korea (and she is Korean) at least for domestic flights you arrive 30 minutes before takeoff and run around like crazy. If you miss your flight they put you on the next one at no extra charge.

Posted by James Trotta at May 5, 2009 10:29 PM