How to minimise ski transfer delays
Jan 7th, 2010 by admin
This Christmas holiday season has shown us all how bad weather and heavy snowfall can affect ski travel. The line between on-time travel and complete failure and cancellation of travel plans has become very fine. Anybody who tried to get out of the UK on an Easyjet flight the past three weeks will know what I mean. It has been a travel nightmare, my flight out got cancelled twice killing days of my planned ski vacation.
Over the past weeks, hundreds of flights have been cancelled, thousands delayed, airports closed, Euro tunnel was closed for days and roads were heavily congested. This severely hit the ski holiday traffic with no end in sight. All of this has seriously affected airport transfer operators.
Even the best performing ski transfer provider have experienced problems during the past weeks. Understandably as it is very difficult for transfer providers to absorb the impact of late and cancelled flights, never mind adverse road conditions and heavy road congestions.
The word on the street is that on the 2nd January 2010 traffic jams in the French Alps were so bad that a transfer that would normally taking two to three hours took up to eight hours, leaving passengers stranded in ski resorts or late for flight departures.
The fact is cheap flight leave you stranded when the going get tough and travel in general is so tightly scheduled that there is little margin for error these days. Having said so, travel arrangements can go wrong due to nobodies fault. That is why I think you should prepare yourself before departure to avoid stress, disappointment and financial loss. Plan ahead – here our tips:
- Take out a travel insurance that includes travel cancellations and delays. Make sure you buy a valid insurance and the policy does not exclude any reasons for cancellations.
- Check your transfer operators Terms & Conditions before you book. These are normally published on the transfer providers website or can be requested by email. Make sure T & C are not unreasonable when it deals with travel delays and missed flights.
- Only book with transfer providers that offers local help lines and driver mobile numbers so you have a number of channels to communicate should there be a problem with your travel arrangements.
- As transfer operator before you book about their delay / cancellation contingencies
- Try to book earlier pick-up time on your return journey to make sure you are not affected by delays due to traffic jams. It is always better being early and enjoy a beer in the airport than stressing in a traffic jam, worried about missing your flight
- Check your departure airport before you leave home / ski resort. Try to find out about actual and potential delays and closures. It is easy to go on-line these days. In case of problems contact your transfer provider to re-arrange pick-up times.
- Call your transfer provider in advance to find out if there are any possible delays. Don’t just wait until the scheduled pick-up time passes before you check for delays.
- Get a number for taxi providers in your ski resort. You can find this out during your stay in the resort. It is better to have a few numbers, just in case you need them. This will avoids last minute panic when things go wrong.
- Make sure you charge your mobile phone before departure date, you never know how many emergency calls you have to make should things go wrong.
It is very rare that transfers get delayed enough for you to miss your flight. However as we have seen recently, things can get out of control during peak travel times. The above list should help you minimise your stress and avoid financial loss in case of airport transfer delays.
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