Why Some People Are Driving Hours Instead of Taking a Plane

seven hours to get where they need to be. Alison Poi, travel reporter of the Wall Street Journal, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Allison, thanks so much for having me. Well, one of the biggest things that the airline industry was waiting for to help bring the industry back. This is after all the closures and everything that was going on through the pandemic, was the return of the business traveler. And now we're kind of seeing some of that happened.

It's coming back in a lot more ways as more offices are opening up. But man, these travel disruptions, these all this travel disruptions to air travel are really wreaking havoc on people's schedules and in a lot of case, some of these business professionals are just saying, screw that,

I'm probably just going to drive. Some reports are saying that, you know, people are maybe taken up to seven hour drives just to get to whatever it is that they need to go see clients, these business conferences, all that stuff. So Allison tell us a little bit more about how the disruptions are really just changing everything. So a lot of leisure travelers have experienced these disruptions as well, from staffing shortages, COVID absences, weather problems, air traffic control as

wall and business travelers are right there alongside them. So some of them are opting to drive instead of fly for work trips. And that means that as opposed to driving three to four hours as they might have done in the past, they're now driving five to seven hours rather than take some of these shorter haul flights. And it makes sense. It's that whole mindset of you know, I know how long it will take me to drive there.

At least I can leave when I want. There won't be those disruptions of a surprise cancelation or delay anything. And they're banking on it's just easier than going through the whole hassle of something going wrong with your flight. Yeah, exactly. You have to build in the time to get to the airport, to wait in long security lines, even the pre check lines are pretty long at some airports. Then there's the time at the airport itself and hoping your

flight doesn't get delayed or canceled. So they're taking matters into their own hands and choosing to drive. Yeah, almost three percent of flights were canceled in June. I mean every weekend when you come back on Monday, you're kind of hearing more flights for cancel over the weekend. You know.

It's this kind of this constant thing as you mentioned all those problems that were happening with staffing shortages and so on, and for companies now trying to adjust to this, uh, you know, to allow for their employees to make this travel, they're having to a lot more time for that. There, you know, saying okay, you don't leave a day early. Now, it's just the planning that goes into it is so much more absolutely and so that could be an additional

hotel charge as well. If someone's leaving the day before, maybe they are still flying, but they want to make sure that they leave plenty of buffer to get to that meeting. Hotels are very expensive this year, they're full. It also means if someone is canceled or delayed and they're trying to return, that could tack on an extra hotel stay on the other end as well. Yeah, and sticking with the hotels and kind of these other events,

spaces and whatnot. I know a few people in the hotel industry, the hospitality industry, and even they're you know, they're getting bombarded by the same things that's happening everywhere. A lot of staffing shortages and whatnot. And for some of these travel companies that handle with with businesses and whatnot, and and the business travelers themselves, they're saying, I'm dealing

with people I've never dealt with before. You know, so many people are taking more, taking on more responsibilities, trying to accommodate all this stuff. Right as they're staffing shortages, people are doing the jobs of two or three other people. So one company that books corporate travel mentioned to me that they had an experience at a hotel where the director of sales was booking and planning the entire event rather than just booking the event. And passing it off

to on site operations staff. They saw the entire process through, and we're even on site with banquet staff to make sure that everything went off well. And that can be tough for organizers and for the workers as well. They're running on firing on all cylinders, and for the organizers, it can take a while for things to come together because people who are stretched then take a little bit

longer to respond and coordinate. It's interesting, right, everybody had been wanting to get back to normal how it was before the pandemic, and you know, we're slowly starting to get there, at least when it comes to workplace issues and drive, you know, and the travel and all this stuff associated with it. But men are those growing pains to get back there so difficult and planning a big corporate event, which are starting to come back now, right.

You mentioned one event where they were trying to do a hundred and fifty percent event, pretty big, but twenty flights got canceled, fifteen percent of the attendees got affected, and it just really throws everything for a loop at that point. Yeah, because then you have to decide should we start the event with the people who are here or should we wait for them to get here, should we add on extra time at the end? Is there even space in the hotels for these people? Are we

able to get them flights there? And when will they rejoin the event? So it becomes really complicated when you have people traveling from all over. Yet there is a very strong desire for these in person events to reconnect with colleagues and clients as well. So the desire is there,

it's just all of the rigamarole and getting there. And any of the people that you spoke to, did they mention anything about trouble with actually getting those rental cars if they're opting not to do the plane ride, maybe driving, you know, if they're not using their own personal vehicle. Was there any difficulty there, because it's another story we have been hearing too, just the difficulty and the backlog

with rental cars. Yes, they've been reserved for months. People have learned now that they need to make those reservations early, and in some cases people are having an issue because they only want the car to go one way and those book things are pretty rare to come by. So if someone has a return flight and they're hoping that that goes off as well. They are just trying to get to their initial destination, so it can be really tough to find a one way rental car, especially on

such short notice. Yeah, and they'll tack on fees too. If you just want to leave it somewhere else, you know, oftentimes they say, well you can, but it's gonna cost you extra just even for that. So a lot of difficulties with getting back to normal, especially for the business travelers and the companies that employ them. Alison Polly, travel reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. I'm

Oscar Ramiers and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check me out in the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us in I heeart Radio or wherever you get your podcast