TA

In general, what's the best way to do get a message to someone in transit?

If the person's in the airport, do you call the airline, or the airport to have them paged?

If the passenger is in the air, will the airline send a message for you? Does it have to meet some criterion of "importance"? Or will they wait till the flight has landed and ask the ground service agent to handle it?

Any advice?

EPS

In my experience, it's just about impossible in the U.S. (Mostly I've been told it's not permitted for security reasons, or that the FAA frowns on this.) I've never been successful in having an airline convey a message to a passenger.

Assume you can only contact someone who wants to be found. He/she should carry a cell phone/pager in airports; in the air, the passenger must "activate" an onboard phone on each flight segment in order to receive incoming calls.

fastflyer

For travel outside of the U.S., the airline will print a telex of your message for delivery at the arrival or connecting airport gate.

Inside the U.S. things are less easy. If the traveler will be using an airline lounge, contact the lounge staff (the airline can direct you to their actual phone number). Another option is to notify the police in the arrival city (assuming this is something of that level of urgency) and ask them to await the arrival at the gate.

MileKing

Rule number one of frequent flying: Never, ever, under any circumstances, answer an airport page.....it can only be bad news!

Merry

I just carry my Iridum pager which can be used in-flight and then I cam call people back.

Of course this involves frequent disputes with cabin crew about the fact that Iridium pagers are allowed on-board.

By the way if anyone wants to but a second-hand Iridium pager, I would happily consider any reasonable offer - nobody ever actually pages m, it is just such an ancient technology.

Nick

JerryFF

If you really need to page someone, here are a couple of suggestions. You can look up the major airports at http://www.quickaid.com/airports

If you scan through for airport services and help, you can usually find either a pager number or an administrative number or an airport security number. Call that number and ask how to page someone.

If your airport is not listed under quickaid, use a browser to find the website of the airport in question - nearly every airport has a website - and try the same thing.

If none of the above works, call the airline your person is flying, explain the situation, and ask them to call the airport to see if their airport personnel can page the person.

I've found that usually (though not always) one of the above will work.

[This message has been edited by JerryFF (edited 07-26-2000).]

Eastbay1K

If you call the airline, they will (generally) give you the # for the paging service at the airport.

dranz

when travelling domestically; the at&t
flight phones permit you to 'register' so
that anyone can dial you directly (in your
seat).

-doug

T3

One more suggestion: if the person is renting a car, contact the car agency counter at the airport. I've been contacted more than once in this manner.

usoftie

If you know they will be checking baggage, the airline should be able to page in the baggage claim area for the person. I was contacted that way once when my parents made an unscheduled stop at the hospital on the way to pick me up at the airport. I went to the baggage service center, they handed me a dot matrix printout with the message. ("Oh, just take the SuperShuttle to the hospital, no big deal!")

testa

For in airport or out of town use I'd still go with a pager with nationwide capability. When you are in flight, you can add the option that saves the missed pages which you can retrive later on. You can use cell phones but as was mentioned previously by someone else, you have to program/activate this daily- but its more convenient though.

Marianne Cunningham

obscure2k

As this thread is 19 years old, I doubt that the posts will be timely. Therefore, I am locking this thread and suggest that you begin a new one.
Thanks...
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator