I agree it's become a hassle. Flying anywhere now means a day is lost. An hour to Toronto, unless I need to be sure about traffic, then I need to add another 30 minutes of safety. Then half hour to get from parking to the terminal unless I want to pay the big bucks for the parking garage. Then they say 2 hours ahead for domestic or 3 for international. You are usually safe to cut that in half, but how do you know until you are there? If I plan for worst case, I have five hours in, and I've just sat on the plane. Then, it seems like direct flights never end up where I want them, or at a time of day that is ideal, and I end up wasting more time waiting for connecting flights, or sitting around at the other end, because I got there way earlier than I needed to.

If you get away from the big airports, it's not nearly as bad. For us, for US flights that means Buffalo (2 hours) or Detroit (3 hours). But then that means I need to drive further, and plan on crossing the border by car, which means a safety margin to be sure I don't run into a backlog there. The best plan is if Westjet out of Kitchener flies anywhere useful. That is the easiest for us, but how many times do I want to fly to Calgary for my connecting flight?

Since I've lost most of the day anyway when flying, I now set my range as 15 hours by car before I consider flying. I spend the same amount of time away (leave the same day as I would if I flew and get back home on the same day as well), and have a lot less stress with worrying about lineups and backlogs.

Lately, a number of my co-workers have been trapped in airports because of weather and connecting flight issues. It's getting worse it seems.

Oh, and I don't have to worry about the chemical swab picking up some compound on my hands that results in being quickly surrounded by people asking a lot of questions. The last one was whether I worked with fertilizer. I don't so I figure it might have been on some money I picked up at a restaurant next to a farm supply store.