well, i fibbed a little. you can't avoid delays at the airport. there are lot's of reasons for flight delays. weather, earthquakes, crew fatigue, godzilla, etc.
what you can do is utilize tools to help weather unexpected delays and convert them to expected delays. that way you can better plan when to head off to the airport or whether or not a change in flight plans are in order. or perhaps you can determine and plan how long that stay in the airport bar is really going to be. ;)
being a traveling consultant offers me many opportunities to sample the hospitality offered by the nations busiest airports.
i can go on and on about the efficiency of ATL's tram system, or the beauty of the tram system at the northwest world gateway at DTW. i can also comment and opine on the functional efficiency of hub-and-spoke terminal architecture versus parallel terminal architecture in terms of getting passengers from one gate to another in the fastest and most efficient way possible.
i don't pretend to have all the tricks and tips of the hardiest road warriors and frequent flyers, but i do have some resources that i use to help with business travel and to get me home to my family.
this airport performance calculator can help with planning.
the national weather service has full looping video of current weather conditions that can help you see what is coming at you and whether or not it'll ground you for the night or just delay you for the requisite 30-60 minutes (i'm looking at you ORD).
if you're a google earth user, you can get this plug-in which shows flight tracking data. you can track where your in-bound plane is. is it still at the airport? is it in the air? how far away from your airport is it? all those questions can be answered with the magic of google!
hopefully my tips can help you get home safely and close to on-time as is possible.
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You know what has always amazed me about airport design? The lack of clocks! I mean, the whole concept revolves around people being in certain places at certain times. If *I* were designing an airport, I'd slap giant digital clocks every few yards that travellers don't have to stop or even really slow down to read. But most airports are devoid of clocks. In the old NW terminal in Detwaa, they used to have those sad little analog clocks that stopped telling time back in 1972 or something, and in the new NW terminal, any active gate displays the time, but that can't always be easily seen from the concourse.
I realize that many people carry a timepiece (or in this day and age, a cell phone) but this is a phenomenon that I've noticed for over 10 years and around the world. Well, in North America and Europe. Maybe Asian or African airports are lousy with clocks. :)
I should have written, "most airports in my experience are devoid of clocks." You've seen way more airports than I have. So let me know if I'm wrong. :)
you know you're right. it's almost like a casino in some of the major hubs i've been through.
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