Flying over a national holiday, like the kickoff-to-summer Memorial Day Weekend just passed, is always a crapshoot. But because of vacation schedules and timing, like my college reunion this year, many of us have little choice but to fly then.
More people are traveling through an already-strained airline and airport ecosystem. From May 26 through May 29, 9.8 million travelers passed through TSA airport checkpoints, many more than during the 2020-2022 COVID years, and even slightly more than the new baseline, pre-COVID 2019 .
It was so nice that I was screened twice, as you’ll see.
Most of these people actually got where they were going, more or less on time. But from the traveler’s perspective, there are so many areas where things could go wrong.
J.D. Power, for example, tracks passenger satisfaction in terms of aircraft, baggage, boarding, check-in, cost and fees, flight crew, in-flight services and reservations. Even bigger issues, like delays and cancellations, also lead to customer support frustrations.
While Frontier Airlines shut down its customer service phone lines in November, (customers now must use online chat or email) American Airlines still retains them. Unfortunately, they proved of little help in my situation.
