Boulder City Magazine is a monthly publication full of information about Boulder City and Southern Nevada. Boulder City Magazine features the Boulder City Home Guide, a real estate guide to Boulder City and Southern Nevada.

Travel Now
by Ihla Crowley
Drifter Sister

On Time
When you take on the challenge of booking your own flight, one of your major concerns, especially for multi-leg journeys with connecting flights, should be whether your departing flight will leave on time in order to make your connection.

I know your first inclination is to base your decision on price (we’ll talk about that next month), but no matter how cheap the flight, if you miss your connection, you’re in deep yogurt. Although it can never be guaranteed, you will be happy to know there are some things you can do to increase your on-time odds.

The first step is to choose your departing time wisely. I know it’s never fun to set the alarm at 3 or 4 a.m. in order to catch a flight leaving before daylight, but the experts say the earlier in the day you fly, the less likely it is that your flight will be delayed. According to Wendy Perrin in her column in Conde Nast Traveler, the best time to depart is between 6 and 7 a.m. This is confirmed on the website www.avoiddelays.com, where traffic-controllers provide advice. On this site, you can also plug in the name of the city you’re flying to and get the worst hours for travel at that specific airport. Here’s what the controllers say:

Travel early, Travel early, Travel early.  This is by far the most important advice. Take the earliest flights possible. There are several advantages to this, including at the end of each day, airlines reposition aircraft to begin the next day’s schedule. Therefore, aircraft for the earliest flights are usually already stationed at the airport. Later flights may be delayed because the aircraft is delayed arriving from another location.  Also, thunderstorms build as the day progresses and temperatures rise causing flight delays.

So there you have it. Makes sense, I guess, but I had never thought of it this way before. Another thing I would suggest is to avoid tight connections. One and a half hours should be your absolute minimum, with two or more being the ideal.

For more on this subject and others, as well as fun tours conducted by Catch the Wind Tours, visit www.driftersister.com.

Catch the wind, taste the rain, and touch all of your tomorrows

Be sure to check out www.driftersister.com for more information and handy hints.



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