TRAVEL Schedule Time to Smell the Roses: Building in Time for Disruptions – by David Prichard and Lily Mak, Enchanted Sea Images, Inc., Dallas, TX
After a week of diving Papua New Guinea (PNG), we departed the live- aboard boat and boarded the van that would take us to the airport for our return flights to the US. We no- ticed very little activity while ap- proaching the terminal and saw only one person at a desk when our dive
and crews in the right place so that your flights can take off at the right time. Various reports in 2024 indicated that some- where between a quarter to one third of all flights were de- layed (and many cancelled) due to dangerous weather, security concerns, aircraft or crews not in position to meet the sched- ule, technical or mechanical problems, or multiple other is- sues. Most often, the cause of delays or cancellations of flights is not at your location, but instead at the location where your plane is coming from, or even its route before that location. A delay or cancellation in one location can create a “domino effect” for the plane’s remaining schedule. The problem in-
group dragged our luggage inside to get checked in for our flight. When asked about our scheduled flight that day, the person responded: “No plane today, maybe tomorrow.” That is not something you want to hear when you have cru-
cial multiple connections (that you will now not make) to get you home. While the rest of the divers went into frantic mode trying to make new flight arrangements, we just needed to send an email to our B&B host in Cairns, Australia (our connection hub), that we would- n’t be there today, but probably tomorrow (hopefully). “No problem,” she responded. We had built into our trip itinerary a few “buffer” days in Cairns both going to PNG and coming back so that we could enjoy ex- ploring the area as part of our experience on this journey. It also proved to be useful to allow any “hiccups” in our travels to be reme-
tensifies when you are scheduled on smaller airlines that don’t have an extra plane to put into service when a problem occurs. Another consideration where it might be ad- visable to build in some buffer time at a con- nection hub is when the final destination is a location that has few flights into it, so any de- viation can be detrimental to your flight con- nection schedule. Instead of multiple flights per day, many airlines might only fly in once a day or even just a few days per week. If you (or your bags) miss that flight, then your days of diving and tropical vacation experiences get shortened, sometimes drastically.
Groups can use multi-day layovers in connection hub cities to go sightseeing like this group in Singapore (before heading to Indonesia).
died. This was fortunate for us also at the beginning of the trip because when we arrived in Cairns, en route to PNG, two of our checked bags went on to Japan instead of staying with us in Australia. The night before we were to depart for our liveaboard in PNG, the bags showed up and were delivered to our B&B so that we could fly and board our boat with all our gear. The more complicated your flight itinerary on a dive adven- ture, the more time you need to build in some “buffer time” to resolve any unforeseen changes you might encounter on your journey. While it may be more efficient to create a tight flight schedule to maximize your vacation days, you need to consider the risks involved if that schedule is disrupted in any way. There is a vast number of logistics involved in getting planes
If you spend extra “buffer” time at a major flight connec- tion hub, then you have many more flight options if you are “off schedule” than you do at a remote location, or to allow missing bags to catch up to you. This extra time can even be part of your planned adventure if you are running a group trip. Last year, we had a group trip to North Sulawesi in Indonesia. Since we had to fly into Sin- gapore to connect to the final location, we decided to lay over a couple of days there to explore the sights (as well as let peo- ple and bags catch up). Everyone enjoyed the extra excursion
except that we discovered you can’t experience everything in Singapore in just a few days, so a return trip is needed.Sometimes it is best to plan some time in your connection hub to “just go smell the roses.”
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