Anywhere But Here

Despite my advocacy of other forms of transportation, the truth is, to get to many interesting place, you’ll have to fly. And that’s where it gets tricky. Since the collapse of TWA, St. Louis really hasn’t been an airline hub city. I could go into a long, boring explanation, but all you really need to know is that unless you have major cash to spend, you’ll probably need to take a connecting flight rather than non-stop.

I found this out shortly after I moved from my hometown of St. Louis out to San Francisco. And to add insult to injury, I can fly nonstop cheaper to Hawaii than I can fly connecting to St. Louis.

But this means I can give you, my lucky readers, the lowdown on what you’ll be dealing with.

DALLAS/FORT WORTH
This is one of American Airlines major hubs. I recommend flying through here during winter, as Dallas is the least likely of the hub cities to be snowed in. Every time I’ve flown in, though, it seems like my connecting flight is on the opposite side of the airport. But my flights are almost never late, so I have plenty of time to trek across the airport. Plus, Dallas has the extremely swift Skylink light rail connecting all the terminals when I do have a tight connection. Overall, this is an excellent airport to connect through.

DENVER
This is a hub for United and Frontier Airlines. I happen to like Frontier as an airline, but I don’t tend to fly through Denver as most of my flights into St. Louis are during winter. DON’T FLY THROUGH DENVER IN WINTER, if you can avoid it. Denver is notorious for getting snowed in and having other weather delays.

Still, I recently connected through Denver during summer, and it was fairly pleasant. On both my incoming and outbound trips, my plane arrived at a gate practically right next to the departing gate for my connecting flight. I was able to get off the plane, meander down to a coffee shop, and easily snag a seat right by my gate.

If your flight is during spring or summer, or you’re flying last minute and Denver’s ten-day forecast looks clear, go for it.

CHICAGO O’HARE
Chicago O’Hare is a hub for practically every major airline in the country, and it shows. Overcrowded, overbooked, delays are the rule, not the exception. The first and last time I ever connected through here, I arrived 11 hours after I was supposed to have landed in LA. First the flight out of St. Louis was delayed because of a jam on Chicago’s end, and they booked us on another flight, then that flight was overbooked, then when I finally got to O’Hare, there were problems with the connecting flight…and this was during the spring, so none of the delays were weather-related. Don’t connect through here if you can possibly avoid it. Fly into Chicago Gatwick if possible. Hell, take the train or the bus up to Chicago from St. Louis — it’ll probably take less time.

Caitlin Moriarity is a freelance editor and writer who has been hooked on travel since a semester studying abroad in college. You can read her other travel writing at www.tropeofirony.com.