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Rx For Holiday
Travelers
Power Trip · November 22, 2002
Thanksgiving. Labor
Day. The Fourth of July.
Leisure travelers look forward to these holidays with anticipation — it's
a time when Mom, Dad and junior pack up their suitcases and board a plane,
minivan or cruise ship for some well-deserved time off.
Not so for business travelers. For them, it's those three holidays in
particular — but also other celebrations such as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and
Christmas, New Year's Day, Easter and Memorial Day — that that make them
shudder.
But what if they have to travel around that time?
Holidays are no fun for the jet-set. Consider the following numbers:
If you're new to business travel, or if you're just a tourist wondering
what all the fuss is about, then let me help you understand why holidays
and road warriors don't mix.
Imagine Mom, Dad and junior sharing an airport terminal with Mr. Frequent
Flier. Now double the number of passengers, add a few screaming babies
for good measure, and you can probably see why Mr. Flier looks forward
to the holidays about as much as his next salary review.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm the proud papa of a four-month old baby boy,
and he's usually a great traveler. But every now and then, he likes to
give his little lungs a workout. I pity the poor business traveler trying
to get work done in the seat next to his.
Here are three secrets to surviving the holidays — and keeping your sanity:
Fly during off-times. Leisure travelers prefer to start their outbound
trips in the mid-morning because they have plenty of time to do any last-minute
packing, to dress the kids, feed the baby and put the dog in the kennel.
On the return trip, it's the very opposite: Infrequent travelers love to
extend their vacation as long as possible, returning on a Sunday night.
Don't travel then. An airline will often reward you for flying during less
popular times by offering lower fares. In terms of car travel, I get some
of my best driving done when I leave at 2 a.m. and drive until breakfast.
The roads are practically empty — even before a major holiday.
Peter Shankman, a marketing consultant from Manhattan, likes to book himself
on the overnight flights, better known as the red-eye. On a New York-to-Los
Angeles run, he can arrive at his destination in the morning and still
get a full day of work in. "You just have to learn to sleep on a plane.
Otherwise you aren't the friendliest person the next day," he says.
Aim for the "eye" of the hurricane. The best times to travel aren't
on the days leading up to the holiday, but on the actual holiday. Contrarian
advice? Yes, but it works. Take a look at airline "load factors" — that's
airline lingo for how full the plane is — on major holidays, and you'll
see what I mean. On the Friday before Thanksgiving 2000, about 2.1 million
people traveled by air, and load factors averaged 80%. But on Thanksgiving
Day, only 1.2 million people flew, and load factors dropped to 52%, according
to the ATA.
How about Christmas? The best days to travel are Dec. 24, 25 and 31, when
load factors are less than 70%. The busiest travel days are Dec. 28 and
29 and the day after New Year's Day. Whenever Doug Jensen, a Boston computer
scientist, needs to go somewhere during the holidays, he's careful about
his timing. "I fly on Christmas Day and on Thanksgiving Day and on New
Year's Day," he says.
Get out of the country. Plan a business trip to a country where they
don't celebrate the Fourth of July, Labor Day or Thanksgiving. For example,
I visit my family in Europe every year during Thanksgiving. Airline ticket
prices are low and the plane is rarely full. The summer tourists are long
gone by then and I have plenty of time to check out the destinations I need
to write about for the following year.
As a business traveler, one of the wonderful things about going abroad
during these holidays is that you can continue to work at the same pace
you're used to. Schedule a meeting with tourism officials on Labor Day?
Sure, they don't observe Labor Day, so it's no imposition. This strategy
also works for other big holidays. Jeff Hatch, a frequent traveler who
lives in Truckee, Calif., likes to head overseas during the winter to
places where none of the traditional American holidays are observed. A
few years ago he spent Christmas in Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist
nation, where he says, "I was oblivious to the holiday."
Of course, the only way of making sure that you survive the holidays is
to just stay put. The most experienced travelers avoid the big holidays
— particularly the long stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day
— and instead postpone their trips until after the first week of January,
a time better known as "dead week" in the travel industry. That's what
Craig Puller, a Princeton, N.J., data analyst for a financial services
company does. "I can't stand traveling around the holidays. It's not worth
the hassle," he says. He prefers to get out of the office after everyone
else has returned from their holiday travels, and he has the road to himself.
We should all be so lucky.
Christopher
Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed
questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.
