Originally Posted by
bniu
I'm helping a friend plan a trip to Washington DC for a meeting there. I'm trying to convince her to take a connection to fly into DCA rather than flying to IAD nonstop because from what I hear, IAD is really really inconvenient to get to downtown DC? She's looking for overall trip time/convenience (which means ground time as well). Any thoughts?
What's more inconvenient? A slightly longer (45 min v. 15 min) cab ride from the airport into downtown vs. connecting in ORD, adding significant risk of a mis-connect or weather delays, not to mention the extra travel time of taking two flights and the ground connection time, which great exceeds the extra time getting to/from Dulles? If she is there to attend a meeting, I would think your friend could have her transportation to/from Dulles covered, right?
To me, taking the nonstop is a no brainer, especially if traveling for work and/or traveling in the winter or summer when weather delays (or in the case of last week even airport closures) in ORD are common.