Stranded US Airways passengers, what would you do to get out of the Airport?
 

The news reports say people could be trapped in the Airport far from home for days due to the weekend snow storm. The story is similar to the Christmas fiasco in Denver where it took almost a week to get people home. No hotels or car rentals and a general lack of taxi cabs. You are desperate to get out of the Airport.

If this is happening to you... what innovative things would you do to get out of the Airport and into a real bed?

Would you approach people in the Airport to beg for a ride?
Would you try to walk into town?
Would you call someone you have not talked to in years who lived in town to try to get help?
Would you hang out at the Car Rental desk and try to bribe people who got a car to see if they could help you?

Other ideas to get out of the Airport.

As reflecting on 9/11, and having something of a larger scale happen...travel wise...NO..NONE of the above.

That is why I have a great travel agent, and pay dearly for her services ($50+/tix). She had a rental car waiting for, called my wife to reassure her I was ok, and had a room booked 1/2 way between MSP-PHL for me! I would never do any of the above!

I second that emotion. I had no idea how screwed up things were getting until I hit Denver on Friday afternoon, trying to get home to DC and already having been rerouted once. As more flights started showing up as "cancelled" and the gate agents started chasing people over to the Customer Service desk (I was flying UA that day), I started to get the bad feeling I was going to be stuck in Denver... overheard many folks calling various area hotels and being told "no vacancy" but one call to my corporate travel desk and I had a confirmed room at the nicer of the two airport Marriotts, plus a car service to tote me back and forth.

Booking through certain travel agents and corporate travel services has another advantage--- you can cancel hotels without fees a lot more easily than booking directly with the hotel. Some hotels extend this privelege to their elite members, too. But I like being able to line up the hotel room before I give up for good on getting a flight out. Beat the rush and all.

That said--- if I wanted to get out of an airport bad enough, I would find the closest available hotel, which might realistically be 50 miles or more away, and rent a limo to drive me there. Limos are often available when taxi's are not, as long as you're willing to pay the minimum rental which is often 3-4 hours. Maybe round up some other stranded PAX to share the limo and the costs. I am not sure how much more conservative I would be if I were on personal travel instead of business travel (it seems like I am always on corporate travel when I get stuck) but I doubt it would be much; I can't think of a circumstance where I would actually sleep in an airport.

I'd start calling aircraft charter companies and get a few people together to share the cost. Atlantic Aviation on the other side of the field (adjacent runway 8-26) is booming with private aircraft.

Depending on how far, even a turboprop King Air could work out to be not horribly too much if a few people are splitting the cost. 500 miles could be a few grand, but between 4-5 people, that might not be so bad if they really want to get out. A transcon jet charter, on the other hand, would probably be cost prohibitive to most - even if 6-8 people were sharing it.

This is how Richard Branson (founder of Virgin) got his first immersion into the airline world. Back in the early 80's, he was stranded in a Caribbean island and flights were canceled for one reason or another. So he started calling charters and put up a big sign soliciting some people to share the cost. He and a few others got off the island when many more were stranded for days. One of the fellow passengers said "you should be running an airline...." He was fully immersed in the music business at the time, which is where his wealth originates, so he didn't actually startup Virgin until a few years later.

Drive!
 

If I knew - as it became apparent to me on Friday afternoon when I was trying to leave BDL for PIT - that the only way I would get home before Sunday (at the earliest!) was to rent a car, I would!

Yes, I understand people from far away wouldn't have that luxury; but I finally left BDL in the last AWD car Avis could rent me and headed home. I had to drive to MDT first (long story), but I made it home by 4:20 on Saturday afternoon.

8 hours on I-84 from Hartford to Scranton, PA. The next day driving to Harrisburg was far easier! Kudos to the US GA who gave me zero flack processing a "trip in vain" refund slip when I said it would be easier to just get a refund that fly at all.

I would have taken the train into Center City. They run every 20 minutes, usually. There are something like 11,000 hotel rooms there, plus the 3,000 rooms at hotels in and around the airport. There are also dozens of B&B's in and around Philadelphia. I put my family up in The Castle B&B for my college graduation at 48th & Springfield Avenue. Only five rooms, though.
Kendall

How about taking whatever public transportation option is available to get out of the airport and into downtown, wherever that may be? Once downtown, chances at getting a hotel might be better, although not guaranteed--- it all depends on where and when you are stranded and what your budget is. Cabs would probably be easier to get, too. Off-airport car rental, especially on the weekends, might be easier as well. I'd think that you would have more choices overall if you can escape the crowds of stranded PAX all competing for the same scarce resources. Hopefully you'd be stuck somewhere like LGA/EWR/JFK, DCA, BWI, ATL or one of the many other airports that have subway or commuter train stations onsite. But if there's no subway/train, most airports still have a commuter bus service to wherever downtown is.

From there you can also think about Greyhound to take you far enough to escape the weather and hopefully get a plane home.

I guess it all depends on how badly you want to get out of the airport!

Seeing as I missed my connection in PHL Saturday evening and am now here until Tuesday AM here's what I did:

--> Went to US Club and the lady at the desk was useless and when her computer went down at 9PM I determined she was entirely useless

--> Next, I went on orbitz, pulled hotels for PHL center city, called the crowne plaza and made a reservation.

--> The other lady in the club was quite useful when I said I was going to go take a cab and gave me directions to take the train. I got on the train, told the conductor where I was going and he told me what station and the fare ($5.50)

--> Checked into the hotel and got online and utilized ITA and ExpertFlyer to figure out my options. The US phone line was giving a busy signal so I went to bed.

--> Got up in the morning and repeated the ITA/EF circle since my ideas from the night before were now not bookable and found new options

--> Called US and after an hour on hold the lady got me on the first flight out Tuesday within 10 minutes. I had figured out a way to get to my destination late Monday night if I took the train to DC or else I could just stay in PHL and go out Tuesday AM.

--> Only booked the Crowne Plaza through Monday AM so I located an airport hotel with availability, the Mariott Residence Inn, called, and made a reservation for Monday night so I'll be near the airport for my 0630 flight.

This entire process while annoying and inconvenient was not the least bit difficult for me. The only requisite tool was an Internet connection and a laptop. The US club was actually useless because I found the lady at the desk pretty useless, but it did let me get on T-Mobile Internet in a comfortable chair. That whole bit about there's no hotels was a myth - orbitz found four properties downtown, several by the airport, and the Hilton desk found me several more in the area when I called Saturday night. I'm sure Mariott would have done the same.

What am I doing with the time? The hotel has an Internet connection so I can get work done, I've never been to Philadelphia which has a bunch of free and interesting attractions, so I spent the day doing that, and both NYC and DC are a short train ride in either direction so I might just spend part of Monday doing that.

While I feel bad for all the clueless folks in the airport having their plans messed up, there was no rocket science involved in how I solved being "stranded". Philadelphia is conveniently located between several places you can be a tourist and has interesting (and free) attractions itself. and really I'm sure you could make an impromptu vacation on Amtrak around here. It's not turks and caicos or whatever, but pretty much everything to see in DC is free, train tickets are like 40-60 bucks, and you can easily spend a week doing all the attractions there alone.

^ ^ ^ :)


Had some friends in SF in the same sitation (trying to get back to NYC) and they had a great impromptu vacation. Guess it's up to the individual and how to approach things- glass half full and such. Glad to hear you got to take advantage of Philly.^ ^ ^ :D
Cheers,
Kendall

Or...

Go to craiglist.com and find one of the many desperate condo flippers in Philly who are trying to find renters. I'm sure you could crash in one of those condos for a night or two -- and the price would be VERY negotiable!

Or....
PM Tommyleo! I hear he knows the nightlife in Philly like the back of his hand
:D :D :D :D :D
Kendall

True!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:


(JL says hi!) :D

I wasn't on US yesterday, but in the rental car shuttle at ROC I overheard people who had just dropped off their rental car at ROC. They had driven it from PHX, leaving on Friday... :eek:

I have a couch for someone stuck at PHL to crash on. I have Wifi too! Plus, it's only a train ride from the airport to Suburban St. Station, then the #44 bus ($2.00) to my place in Wynnefield Heights/Bala Cynwyd.

I wonder how many will take advantage of my offer. ;)

Completely OT but I never realised that these two small villages in the middle of Wales had given their name to a US suburb.

I know how to say the Welsh version. How do you folks pronounce it ?