The unfortunate thing about business travel is that unless you are able to fly by private jet, you will have to use public transport to travel any significant distance at all. This means that you will have to deal with airports, security measures, crowds of "non-commercial" passengers around you at all times and inevitable delays or a cancelled flight.
As a business traveler, you have a mission to complete. This is not necessarily an adventure nor is it something you do for fun. Its business and you treat it as a business. If you travel frequently on a business trip, you have a standard process you go through to deal with waiting for flights and how to store and retrieve travel documents when you need them.
Most of the time we had to deal with having large crowds around us. After all those families on vacation, groups of teenagers on spring break or young couples on their honeymoon have the right to airlines and airports as they do. But everything changes when flights begin to be cancelled, especially if you are in a situation where many flights are cancelled and large numbers of people are stranded at this airport overnight.
When such a situation begins to appear, it's easy to feel that the panic rises when you feel like it's happening in those around you. Inexperienced travelers may have no idea how to deal with this situation. But as a business traveler, you're there bidding your company. You're probably at the expense of expenses of some kind and you should have a good balance that you can use to navigate that situation. So if you see the airport closure happening around you, you may ask yourself this question, "Is this the right time to panic?" But this is a good time to act quickly until your needs are met.
It's always a good idea to keep your intelligence about yourself in the airport parking lot so you can take early action if you see the airport closure situation starting to happen around you. The thing to remember is that you are the dominant person here and you don't have to let yourself be put into the whims of airlines or airports. But detecting the crisis early is key and taking swift action.
Often when flights begin to cancel, you may find yourself in long lines to try to rebook flights or find a solution to the problem. I realize that if the airport stops all flights due to weather or other reasons, there is no decision waiting for you when you reach the front of the line. Staying in line will only increase your sense of crisis and panic.
So get out of this line! You have resources to provide accommodation for yourself. The last thing you want is to have to spend the night at this airport. If you can get another form of transport, you can still get to your destination albeit a bit late. But car rental agencies will be flooded with people who, like you, are looking for a solution. So the earlier you can diagnose the situation as unacceptable and get a car, the more you can leave the airport and head to a hotel or to your destination.
Use the same strategy to book a room at a nearby motel or hotel. If you can get to private accommodations at night, you can work, make your phone calls, and conserve your energies so you can run the business well once you get through the crisis. But the key is not to panic, quickly devise a solution and put your plan into practice efficiently so you can recover as much of the day as possible due to your wise use of resources.
Comments
Post a Comment