With only a few days to go before the busiest air travel weekend of the year, I thought I’d share some pointers from an article I read this morning suggesting ways to cope with long delays when inside an aircraft. Fortunately, long delays when you are already on board are rare but they do happen. A few weeks ago the Northeast experienced a Nor’easter and there were several instances where passengers could not deplane for several hours. Though unlikely, you may one day be the unlucky passenger facing this issue.

It seems that air travel always has turbulent moments somewhere in the country over the Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend. Combining heavy passenger traffic, less airline capacity and the transition from Fall into Winter creates a perfect storm for things to go wrong for airlines, airports and ultimately the passengers. How many times over the last several years have you seen images on the news showing people “Occupying Airports” for what seems like days due to delays? Hopefully these tips give you a few ideas on how to deal with these types of occurences successfully:

Quoted from the Article:

1. Put your watch away. Tracking the minutes will only make you more anxious.

2.Develop a “psychological survival list” and take it with you. For some people it’s an anti-anxiety pill. For others, it’s more reading material than necessary, a fully charged MP3 player and a couple of snacks.

3.Control anxiety by relaxing muscles. “Concentrate on one major muscle group,” Tomaro said. “The rest of the body will follow.”

4.Schedule flights at off-peak times. “The system can tolerate traffic flow at off times,” meaning less likelihood of backups.

5.Watch the weather. If you plan to fly on a day expected to get heavy snow, consider postponing your flight.