Escape from New York: Five tips for leaving the city when flights fail you

by Tom Johansmeyer on

New York is no stranger to tourist and business travel. We get lot of guests here, and eventually, their trips must come to an end. When the weather turns harsh, this can be problematic. Spring may be close, but March and April snowstorms happen, and there are always spring showers to make getting off the ground at JFK or LaGuardia a pure living hell. Whether you’re traveling in the northeast corridor or need to get to a different airport to get home, there are options.

I came face to face with this problem around six years ago. I was trying to get back to Boston, where I lived at the time. I was in New York every week on business and by Friday wanted nothing more than to get home. I stepped outside at 2 PM and saw snow accumulating on the street, even despite the city traffic. I checked Delta‘s website and saw that nothing had been canceled. So, I high-tailed out to LaGuardia hoping for the best. After a two-hour cab ride, I hit the Marine Air terminal only to find that the website wasn’t being kept up to date.

I needed some options and the thought of another two hours of taxi rides in a blizzard didn’t thrill me. Back in Manhattan, I figured I could pick up a train on Amtrak from Penn Station (which wound up working out). Along the way, I learned some tricks that can help anyone traveling the northeast or looking for an alternative airport when hope appears to be lost.1. Don’t fear public transportation
There’s no subway to LaGuardia, but there are buses. Catch the Q48 from the main airport or the Q47 from Marine Air (if you’re taking the Delta Shuttle). Get off at Roosevelt Ave in Queens, where the F or 7 train will get you back to Midtown. From there, it’s easy to hit Penn Station (New Jersey, Amtrak) Grand Central Station (Connecticut and New York) or the PATH train (if you want to try your luck at Newark). From JFK, you can catch the Skytrain to the subway, but brace yourself for a very long ride – the fastest I ever made it to Midtown was around an hour and a half.

2. Rental cars are risky
First, when flights aren’t taking off, there will be no shortage of people with the same idea. So, supply will be limited. Also, nasty weather makes for nightmarish driving conditions. You’ll be extremely unhappy behind the wheel, a situation that’s likely to be made worse by traffic. If you want to try driving, take public transportation out to the ‘burbs and use a rental agency out there (call first to make sure they can help you out).

3. . Be mindful of the other side
Getting out isn’t enough: you also have to think about where you’re going. If bad weather’s pounding New York, there’s a pretty good chance the situation in Philadelphia, Newark and Boston is also pretty ugly. If you’re having someone pick you up, call ahead. Arrange for a taxi or town car in advance. Definitely check the situation on the ground if you’re trying one of these airports instead. During my trek to Boston during the blizzard a few years ago, I called a local taxi service and asked to be picked up at South Station – and requested that they ask for my name before letting anyone into the cab. Sound arrogant? Well, it saved my ass. I saw the driver turn at least four people away as I pushed through the crowd, and I have no idea how many people tried before I got there.

4. Giving up may not be an option
Sometimes, it’s tempting to quit and just get a hotel room for a night (or a few, depending on how severe the storm is). Depending on what’s going on in the city, however, this may be a pricey alternative. As with rental cars, you won’t be the only person to think of this. Also, a busy night or weekend can cut available rooms down to nothing fast. If you are able to score some digs, you could wind up paying a fortune. If you do decide to stay in the city, hunt for the boutique hotels that y may never have noticed otherwise: they’re your best bet.

5. Draft your friends and family
During my escape from New York, I called my wife and asked her to book my train ticket for me. Handheld computing has come a long way since then, but it’s still inconvenient to hunt for alternatives on an iPhone or Blackberry. If you have someone who’s sitting in a warm office or home, hit him or her up for a hand. They’ll be able to find hotels or other travel arrangements easier than you will. By the time you get from the airport back into Manhattan, you may have a plan that only needs to be executed.

Alaskan village building $76 million airport – for 100 people

by Scott Carmichael on

The Alaskan village of Akutan is home to 100 permanent residents and 900 seasonal workers. Like many Alaskan communities, Akutan makes its money off seafood production. At the moment, the village is only reachable by a 70 year old sea plane – and they are quickly running out of parts for it.

The solution is a new airport. The facility will transport people on the 20 minute flight to the town of Unalaska where they can connect to other flights. Like most Alaskan transportation services – this route is extremely heavily subsidized.

The new airport will cost a whopping $76 million. The sea plane currently carries 5500 people annually, so some simple math shows that in the first ten years of operation, the tax payers are forking over $1350 for every single passenger using the facility. This doesn’t even include any additional costs of operating the airport (another $500,000 each year).

Larry Cotter, the chief executive of the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association says the following about the airport:

“Some people are probably positing, ‘Oh, it’s another Bridge to Nowhere, except it’s an airport to nowhere. Anybody who says that is really ignorant.”

Well, call me ignorant, but I don’t understand why a village of 100 permanent residents needs a $76 million airport. If the current sea plane is falling apart, wouldn’t the best solution be a new sea plane? Alaska has 256 airports, and even the smallest of them may only serve 40 people – costing millions to build and maintain.

Then again, when you read that Chicago’s O’Hare is spending $6.6 billion on its renovation plan, $76 million seems like a bargain.%Gallery-76818%

Before you leave, be sure to check out Episode 3 of Gadling’s Travel Talk TV! They’re in VEGAS, BABY!

Hey, gate lice — stop crowding the gate – Airplane tip

by Gadling Staff on

Your seats are reserved. There’s no circulating air until the plane takes off, and even if you’re the first person on the plane, you’re going to be hot, you’re going to have to move, and you’re going to get elbowed — and maybe get luggage dropped on you. Also, if you’re not the first person to board, you’re going to spend 20 minutes slowly creeping down the crowded walkway.

So… stay out in the relative open space of the terminal waiting area until the gate agents make the final boarding call. Or, at a minimum, wait until they call your boarding number before rushing the gate.

No one like gate lice hovering around the entryway — especially as the rest of us are trying to board.

New technology to scan shoes, (save time?) at airport

by Grant Martin on

If you’ve ever been irritated by the whole process of taking your shoes off in the airport security line, this news may give you some solace. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently announced that they would be purchasing new technology to scan shoes while passengers wear them. Depending on the technology, machines could use electromagnetic fields, chemical detectors or spurts of air to search for explosives or weapons in the shoes, and would be able to do so without removal.

Could this save time at the airport? Potentially. Without the need to remove and x-ray shoes the lines may move faster, but passengers will also have to queue for the shoe scan as well, right?

My big qualm with the whole shoe scanning exercise is in the uneven enforcement. At many airports around the world, shoe removal, unlike metal detection, is optional. It seems silly that we need complicated shoe scanning technology here in the states when someone could easily forgo the test in Hong Kong, fly across the ocean and still cause problems.

I suppose until an optimal solution is found we’ve always got Velcro.

Man sues Canadian airline because they refused to look at his penis

by Scott Carmichael on

When Marcel Cote was in his Air Transat seat back in February 2008, he felt some discomfort “in the area between his legs”. He went to the washroom and noticed he was bleeding from his genitals.

He then asked a female flight attendant to send one of her male colleagues, and asked him to examine his bleeding penis.

As can be expected, the flight attendant refused, and handed him some absorbent paper instead. Upon landing, Mr. Cote was transferred to a local hospital, where doctors determined he had a ruptured vein.

Apparently, not having your genitals examined by a flight attendant is enough to sue the airline. Never mind that the flight crew is not trained to perform medical inspections, Mr. Cote claims the incident turned his vacation into a nightmare, and demanded $8,000 (CAD) for the “anguish” he suffered.

Thankfully, the Canadian judge rejected the case, issuing the following statement:

“It was not incumbent upon a flight attendant to conduct the medical examination of a passenger, a measure reserved for the medical profession,”

The judge didn’t deny that Mr. Cote was in some kind of discomfort, but she also maintained that his discomfort did not appear to be a life threatening situation.