Flying to Europe This Summer Could Be Hell. Here’s How to Make It Better

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

Airports echo with the rage of passengers who discover their flight has been canceled or delayed or who wait for hours for baggage to reach the carousel. Ticket prices soar as fuel costs do the same. The reputation of airlines and the experience at airports have never been worse. Yet the hunger of Americans to be up, up, and away again to Europe this summer after two years of pandemic constraint is amazingly insatiable.

Indeed, one U.S. airline, United, is offering nearly half a million more seats across the pond this summer than it did in the pre-pandemic peak of 2019. What’s more, they’re adding more flights to more cities than ever before. And that was before the U.S. finally dropped requiring passengers from Europe to have a negative COVID test before flying, a decision that will, almost overnight, fill a lot more seats.

European airlines are also adding flights. Analysis by Craig Jenks, of the New York-based Airline/Aircraft Projects, shows Aer Lingus upping flights between Dublin and Orlando from four to seven weekly, as well as new daily flights between Manchester, U.K., and New York. Air France introduced three flights a week from Paris to Denver, and British Airways has four new flights a week from London to Portland, Oregon. There are also scores of new flights to other non-coastal cities, like Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Dallas, and Austin.

at The Daily Beast.

Source:: The Daily Beast

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