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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll finish up today with a call-in on your summer travel plans in this year, where every form of travel seems to be unpleasant in one way or another. 212-433-WNYC. How are you deciding where to travel and how in the summer of 2022 if you're traveling at all? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I don't have to tell you gasoline prices are at a near-record high, and by many accounts, air travel is a total mess. Staffing shortages, rising prices for that too with the cost of fuel, and enough difficulty planning, even on the part of the airlines, that there have been many flights canceled at the last minute.

They're even starting to curtail some routes now permanently - that's been in the news recently - because of pilot shortages as one of the reasons, even though demand is high. Talk to me, talk to your fellow listeners, give people your tips, your advice, your plans, your dilemmas because other listeners are going through it too. Your summer travel plans in this year, where every form of travel seems to be unpleasant in one way or another. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Let's talk more about the airlines. The Wall Street Journal reports air travel is near pre-pandemic levels in terms of passengers. That flights are as full as they were in 2019, so demand is up, but there is that pilot shortage, and many airlines have actually trimmed their summer schedules. The result, as you probably experienced, some of you, is longer lines at airports, long delays, canceled flights, and major headaches for travelers. We're opening up the lines for your stories of how you're planning to travel, but also your stories of having traveled by air recently. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

I would love to hear from some people in the airline industry to call in on this. We've had pilots and flight attendants and others call in in the past. Our lines are filling up pretty quick but is there anybody who recently left the job of pilot? You don't want to do it anymore? Is that why there's a pilot shortage? Do people not want to be flight attendants anymore? Has the whole thing become so unpleasant?

Listeners, is it worse when you had to wear masks on the plane, or I should say was it worse, or is it worse now when maybe you want to wear a mask on the plane and you can, but everybody else around you doesn't seem to be. Call from the air. [chuckles] You can't call from the air. I guess you can in some cases, but call and be on the air about life in the air, and any of your summer travel plans in this life when almost all forms of transportation seem to be unpleasant. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC getting ready to take your calls on your summer travel plans when all forms of transportation seem to be unpleasant right now. Interesting that though that was the invitation, talk about the plans that you have, it looks like a lot of people are calling in with recent air travel horror stories. Let's hear some of those, including one that apparently took place this morning. Shalom in Teaneck, you're on WNYC. Shalom, Shalom.

Shalom: Hi there. How are you? Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Good morning. What happened?

Shalom: Well, we woke up to a text received at 2:00 AM that our flight was canceled. We were supposed to leave this morning, connect by another flight even further away. Now it's all rescheduled after three hours on the phone, but we didn't leave for the airport [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: It's a beautiful day to fly out of New York so it wasn't the weather. Did they say why?

Shalom: No, they did not say why.

Brian Lehrer: What are you going to do?

Shalom: They said something technical but-- Well, we've rebooked for tomorrow. Hopefully, [chuckles] we don't have a repeat.

Brian Lehrer: Shalom, good luck out there. Thank you very much. Here's another one I think. Jacob in East Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jacob.

Jacob: Hi, Brian. Love your show. Happy to be on.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on. What happened?

Jacob: The other week I was flying to Montreal for the Grand Prix. I'm a big Formula 1 fan. My flight was supposed to take off in the morning. Same thing as your last caller, I woke up, it was delayed. I went to the airport a little bit later. It was delayed again and again and again. The flight was delayed-- I think it was about six hours in the end. Then after I finally got on the plane we didn't take off for a while. Then I was stuck on the plane for five and a half hours before I finally got off, and it's only a 45-minute flight to Montreal. I canceled my flight on the way home. Luckily I had some buddies who had their flight canceled and they drove up, so we all drove back together.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. There's a story about trying to fly to watch people drive cars and the plane didn't work out and you had to drive back in a non-race car.

Jacob: Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: For some of our listeners who may be like, "Really? Grand Prix, Formula 1?" what's the appeal of watching the cars race around?

Jacob: Oh, I don't know. Fast cars, just a lot of fun. There's a lot of drama between the different drivers, the different builds of the cars, the different skills of the drivers. Montreal happens to have a very good track that makes for very exciting driving. Lots of different turns. It's a little bit different than NASCAR, which most people might be thinking of.

Brian Lehrer: How was your car trip home? It's such a beautiful route down the Northway. I assume you came through the Adirondacks there on I-87. You didn't want to drive all those hours. You just wanted to fly back for 45 minutes, but it's a beautiful drive. Did you get to enjoy it at least?

Jacob: It was a great drive back. We picked up some delicious pastries on the way home. Montreal's basically like the Paris of North America. On top of that, I was checking my flight to make sure if I made a good decision. Indeed that flight was also delayed a few hours and I stayed at home. I'm very happy I canceled it.

Brian Lehrer: Jacob, glad you called in. Glad you're back safe and sound. Seth in Jersey City, I think another horror story. Hi, Seth. You're on WNYC.

Seth: Hey, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, I absolutely have a horror story from yesterday, also having to do with Canada. I was flying from Barcelona to Newark via Toronto on Air Canada. Not to really complain, traveling back from Barcelona was beautiful. I really shouldn't complain, but the traveling itself, Air Canada is so ill-equipped to deal with the international travel, the transfers, the amount of people. I don't know if it's understaffing or lack of procedures, but transferring in Toronto, we had an hour and a half to make our flight, and hours and hours worth of lines of massive amounts of people leading to one little bottleneck of one person just looking at boarding passes.

That's just for the people. For the bags, our bags did not make it here. Our bags are in Toronto now maybe.

Brian Lehrer: Oh no.

Seth: You track their file reference number and it's just like basically you're saying I don't know. You have to stand in one room and just look at the screen and wait for your name to pop up, and that's when they've checked your bag, but if you wait for your bag you'll miss your flight. We ended up leaving our bags to make the flight. I don't know what Air Canada is thinking booking people on short transfers in Toronto when they don't have the capabilities of getting the people and the bags from one flight to the next in that amount of time.

Brian Lehrer: Is this new, do you think? Have you flown enough to think this wouldn't have happened in the past and there's something about the current conditions that led to what you just described that you experienced?

Seth: Yes. I don't travel for business. It's not like I'm in an airplane every other week, but I do travel pretty regularly over the past, I don't know, 10, 15 years, and I've never seen lines and chaos like this in airports. There's always issues if there's a storm that comes through and downs a bunch of flights and then you'll have a weekend of mayhem. This was the skies are blue, everybody is just doing-- There's nothing unexpected apart from just your regular delays.

The masks are also a thing. Regardless about people not wearing the masks on the plane, you might be frustrated that this person's got their mask off and they're coughing. You're like, "What are you doing?" People being asked to wear masks and then being irate about it. On the flight going out, we actually missed our connection on the flight going out of New York because a woman was asked to put on a mask and she was so irate about being asked to put on a mask that she insisted on talking to the captain, the pilot. They were like, "All right, yes. Walk to the front of the plane, bring your bag," and they kicked her off the plane.

It took her a while to get off so it delayed the flight. Here's the crazy part. The person that kicked off with a Fox News personality, Susan Li, I found it on Twitter right after. Maybe that's just coincidence that you had a reactionary on the plane, but yes, people were not happy about that situation.

Brian Lehrer: Or made the scene to stage a stunt and have something to talk about. We don't know.

Seth: Market aflame.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. All right. Now that we've heard some horror stories we'll get to some people's actual plans, knowing that things like this are going on. Nick in Roslyn Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nick.

Nick: Thank you for taking my call. My wife and I are going to Alaska August 7th through August 29th, and I'm really calling-- We have insurance against the possibility of being canceled. Listen. Any advice, any of your listeners can offer us as far as are we going to Alaska August 7th, and what should we expect? Anybody who knows Alaska, who's been to Alaska, any advice they can give us?

Brian Lehrer: Tell me about the flight cancellation insurance because those are policies usually that will allow you to get covered for very specific reasons for cancellation, certain kinds of documented illnesses, or things like that. Did you buy this as a bulwark against the airline itself canceling the flight?

Nick: Yes. It's expensive too.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. What'd they charge? Do you want to say?

Nick: I don't mind. It's over $1,000 to cancel it, so they're covered.

Brian Lehrer: $1,000 for the insurance? Just no.

Nick: Yes. It's a three-week tour of Alaska.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, the tour is over $1,000, but the insurance, the flight--

Nick: The insurance, it's $1,000. I'm serious.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. That's amazing.

Nick: I paid for it on my credit.

Brian Lehrer: This just may be my ignorance, but if a flight is canceled by an airline, don't they have to refund your money for your ticket?

Nick: Yes, they would, but then we wouldn't be able to go. Now we're talking about hotel reservations, all the plans, hiking reservations. All of this gets canceled.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I see. I see. All that other stuff. Yes, they don't reimburse that. Nick, good luck out there. We may have a piece of advice for you here from Lacy in Brooklyn calling in. Hi, Lacy. You're on WNYC.

Lacy: Hey, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got for us? What do you have for Nick in Roslyn who wants advice?

Lacy: Well, I travel a ton for work. I travel a lot for work and for pleasure. I found a lot of those insurance programs. I never take them, especially during COVID because when it comes to the actual airline, if they're canceling it or if it's a COVID-related thing, they're going to do the right thing. It has been my experience with Delta who I almost exclusively fly. I think that that's just a way for them to get extra money so I never use those insurance programs, and they've always been really good about rebooking me. For me, the golden rule is always avoid layovers because that's where it screws you.

I was coming back from Mexico a few weeks ago and I had a layover because it was unavoidable. My flight was just an hour delayed, but I was running through the Atlanta airport, which is a huge airport, and I had to get through customs. I also highly recommend global entry because if it wasn't for that I would've missed my connection flight and I would have had to spend the night in the Atlanta airport.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Now, the caller before you said that the reason for the insurance-- and that policy still blows my mind, that price. When I fly, I usually don't take it either, but I see these offers and offers and they're not $1,000, but the reason that he said it's that high is that it covers you for all your on-the-ground travel expenses, hotel expenses, other things that you had to lay out in advance. That's not the airplane flight itself, but yes, Delta or another airline would refund you if they cancel your flight. I don't know. That's his take on that anyway.

Lacy: Yes, which I get, and I think that's probably like a package program that he is getting the insurance on. Like a package tour guide. That makes sense but still, that price is outrageous.

Brian Lehrer: Lacy, thank you very much. We appreciate your call. Jack in Trenton, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jack.

Jack: Hi, Brian. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear just fine.

Jack: Hi. My comment on the whole situation is I just-- First of all, personally I like traveling by train the most, especially domestically, the people who were on for me. Obviously, if you're going to Alaska, that is somewhat of a different story, but if you're traveling domestically, train really is by far the most sensible way to go. We've just been so conditioned against public transportation, and there's such a ridiculous stigma around it that so many people in the United States are missing out on what a lot of times is a cheaper, more enjoyable experience.

What's even more ridiculous is that we give out these billion-dollar subsidies to the airline industry. They continue to have these staff shortages because they're not paying their pilots and their stewardess nearly enough, instead of investing in the million or thousands of miles of abandoned rail lines we have in the United States. I could take th train pretty much to any town in New Jersey if we used even half of the abandoned rail lines that we have in the States. My comment to anyone who's worried about flying domestically this summer is take a train instead. It's worth it.

Brian Lehrer: It's really a great point. When we talk casually about travel being a mess this year, it's true that people generally talk about air travel and car travel, and trains don't even come up all that much. Maybe Amtrak, assuming we're talking about relatively long-distance intercity travel, maybe Amtrak is humming along pretty well compared to the other modes.

Jack: Exactly. I haven't heard a single bad story from any of my friends who take Amtrak to get across the country because I don't know a single person under the age of 25 right now who could even afford air travel.

Brian Lehrer: Jack, thank you very much for checking in on that. Another listener writes, "Amtrak is always much more pleasant than flying room/roomettes." I did that once out west heading to Glacier National Park. It was weird but it was kind of fun sleeping in this tiny compartment on an overnight Amtrak trip from the West Coast. Mine didn't include meals. It was a tiny little room. You have to manipulate your way from the bed to the tiny little bathroom, at least in my experience, but it was cool, and just the fact that you could do that. It had a big picture window. As we were getting up close to the park, it was unbelievable.

Oh, I think we have an Amtrak nightmare story online for here. Let's talk to Grace in Brooklyn out of fairness. Hi, Grace. You're on WNYC.

Grace: Hi. I hate to talk trash about Amtrak because I generally love Amtrak, but I was going to Virginia to help my dad after surgery. I got bumped from my flight. I spent a day at the airport. I was like, "Fine, I'll take the train." I booked a train ticket. We left, everything was fine. We got down to Charlottesville. We were like an hour and a half late, which was normal for this line, and then between Charlottesville and Lynchburg, where I'm from, we encountered a freight train with an issue.

In the more rural parts of the country, the Amtrak line and the freight lines share a track. Because we were in a spot where there was a single line of track and the freight train had broken down, we were stuck there for four and a half hours.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, ouch.

Grace: Yes. It's great in the Northeast. It's great in places where it's like a normally traveled line, but when you're sharing a track with freight lines, you-- People on the train were like, yes, this happens a lot. This happened to me before this. It was not like a one-time thing. It happens a lot. It's a bummer.

Brian Lehrer: Grace, thank you for that. As our producer Amanda chimes in, if you're traveling really long distance you also lose a day, basically, traveling by train. Oh, we just have under a minute left, but I see a travel agent. Kat in Lower Manhattan is calling in to defend the travel insurance. Can we get Kat ready to go? Can you take Kat off hold so I can put her on the air? Do we have time for that? No. Okay. I don't-- Oh, there we go. Hi, Kat. You're on WNYC. We've got 30 seconds for you. Hi.

Kat: Hey, Brian. If this was ever the time to use a travel agent, they're waiting for your call. The caller who talked about insurance earlier said it was $1,000, you seemed a little surprised. That reflects the amount of time he's been away, his age, the number of people traveling, and the state that he comes from. Travel agents can back you up. If you use an online service you will never get through to a person, but a travel agent can help you understand flights, back you up if your flight is canceled, and get you to your destination. You don't have to rely on the whims of an airline. They may not help you.

Brian Lehrer: For the travel professionals, Kat, thank you very much. Thanks for all your calls on your travel horror stories and your summer travel plans. I'm going to be off for a few days for a long 4th of July weekend myself, renting a car and driving a few hours to an unnamed mountain range, for the record, so have a good few days. Talk to you in a few. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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