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“
Home For The Holidays” November 21, 2012 A Lincoln Daily News Magazine Copyright 2012
Traveling a distance home for the holidays
H
ome for the holidays” has a wonderful
ring to it. But the pleasant thoughts that
this phrase elicits may be trumped if the
trip home is on a packed airliner departing from
a terminal filled with throngs of travelers. Some
tactics taken when a person decides to travel by
air can be helpful in the experience.
The airlines have reduced
the number of flights and
are using smaller airliners in
order to decrease expenses.
This means that because
flights tend to be full,
reservations need to be made
as soon as a decision is made
to travel. Adecision on which
departure and arrival airports
to use must also be thrown
into the mix.
A traveler can still use a travel agent to book
flights. Agents do offer convenience, but be
prepared to pay a fee for their services.
Most folks prefer to go directly to the airline
and book online, or they use an online source
such as Travelocity, Expedia or TripAdvisor
to do the research for them. There are many of
these sites, but these are some of the most well-
known.
In central Illinois, we have a choice of
departure airports and multiple airlines that offer
service to the entire country. Travelers doing it
themselves would have to research each airport
and all of the airlines serving the airport, and
then determine which to use, based on schedule
and price.
In Lincoln, we can chose to depart from
Springfield, Peoria or Bloomington, which
usually offer short flights to larger airline hubs
such as Chicago, Dallas,Atlanta or Detroit. Some
travelers may elect to cut out the “middleman”
and drive directly to the larger hubs such as
Chicago O’Hare and Midway, Indianapolis, or
St. Louis Lambert.
The decision to depart from a central Illinois
airport or to drive to a larger city offers benefits
and drawbacks.
On the plus side of choosing to depart from
a central Illinois airport is the short commute
time to the airport.
Springfield, with flights
to Chicago and Dallas, is
a 35-minute drive from
Lincoln.
Bloomington,
with flights to Chicago,
Atlanta,
Detroit
and
Dallas, is a 45-minute
drive. Peoria, with nonstop
flights to Chicago, Denver,
Detroit and Dallas, is a
one-hour drive at posted speeds.
One small drawback to a local departure
is that regional jets that airlines usually use
have limited passenger capacity -- around 50
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