I’m an airline worker – my tops tips for travel including why you should NEVER check in luggage or book a late flight
AN AIRLINE worker has revealed what things holidaymakers should never do if they want to avoid airport delays, including checking in bags and booking late flights.
The anonymous American Airlines employee posted on Reddit to offer advice to the online community about how to avoid travel delays.
Identifying themselves only as “an AA employee at the HQ”, they went on to offer their top tips about what to avoid when booking a flight.
The first piece of advice was to book the first flight in the morning and avoid late flights.
Their reasoning was that the plane for a 6am flight is likely to have been sitting on the tarmac since the previous evening.
This means that passengers don’t have to rely on their plane arriving on time just hours before their departure time and reduces the impact of bad weather on the day.
The poster added that “If the 6am flight is cancelled or delayed, it’s possible you will be able to make it on the next flight the same day”, while later cancellations might require an overnight stay.
Other advice included avoiding connecting flights as “the more flights you get on, the higher the chances of problems.”
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They explained that “95% of the time I have had a delayed or lost bag, it has been with a connecting flight because the bag ended up at the connection airport but not my final destination.”
Bag loss was the subject of another top tip, as the airline employee warned against checking in a bag as it “limits flexibility”.
They continued that in the event of a cancelled flight in can take hours to get checked in luggage back while passengers with just carry-on bags can leave the airport immediately.
Even if the flight goes without a hitch, fliers still face a 30 minute wait in baggage claim at their destination.
The post offered other bits of a advice like always having a backup plan to catch other flights if your intended route is cancelled and how and when to claim compensation.
On that topic it said: ” If the flight is cancelled, for any reason, you can request a CASH refund as long as you decline rebooking on the next flight.”
However, it warned that “For weather related cancellations or delays, don’t expect any kind of compensation from the airline.”
“If you are looking for other types of compensation like “my flight is cancelled and we are going to miss a day of Disney, so I expect AA to reimburse us for a day of Disney World tickets”, I will tell you to not even waste your time,” read a further warning”
The post also addressed some common complaints about airlines, saying that delays and cancellations are usually due to factors outside the airline’s control.”
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It agreed, though, that long customer service waiting times were an issue and that airlines “need to hire more folks to answer the phones or make it easier to do things online.”
The employee concluded by urging passengers to look on the bright side when things do go smoothly, saying: “I recently flew from DFW [Dallas, TX] to SEA [Seattle, WA] and left DFW at the crack of dawn and was in Seattle by breakfast time. How amazing is that? If I had to drive that in a car, it would have wasted my entire weekend.”