Sunday, June 26, 2022

Summer travel in 2022 might be a "Murphy's Law" labyrinth

 
I couldn't read the article because I don't subscribe to The Washington Post, but here's the headline:  "During the summer of 2022, it's more like: What could possibly not go wrong?"
The list of potential pitfalls is long, and the probability of long security lines is real, says the New York Times, according to their recent article, there was a 6-hour security line wait in Amsterdam's international airport, and long waits at Heathrow plus, at both airports those waiting to check in were waiting outside in lines that reached the parking lots.
 Labor shortages and lots of cancelled flights, even strikes, there was a strike at Italy's airports and flights were cancelled all over the country, in France flights were also cancelled due to staffing shortages, no one can handle the pent up demand.  
In the USA flights everywhere are being cancelled, Canada is no better, and not enough staff to stand there to help you out with transit information. 
And according the New York Times, it's a good idea to book more than one flight back when you are transiting from one airport to another to get to the city where you are taking your flight back.  The problem is that at busy airports you may not land in time to transit to the right airport gate and may miss your flight, then you have to queue to wait for the airline to give you another flight, there are long lines there, too. 
Although if you arrive and find that your flight to the your destination gets cancelled, you may be able to find another way to get there, but if you want a train, then there's problems there too. 
The best idea for travel this summer is to get travel insurance, but investigate the policy to make certain you can use it for cancelled flights, airport schedule arrival time changes and that causes you to loose your hotel, apartment, etc. bookings. 
Lastly, this may be the year for a "reliable" travel agent who has a 24/7 contact number for cancellations & problems with re-booking of hotels & more.
Here's another possible problem, expect to pay more for food wherever you go, in Italy, pasta of all things is a problem due to a shortage of wheat, they have had their worst drought in Italy in June 2022, crops are drying up, etc.