Thanksgiving Transportation

<p>I'm thinking of booking an evening flight out of Newport News (PHF) on Tuesday, November 24th. Any disadvantages of this re: flight time/issues with the airport?</p>

<p>Plan for heavy traffic if you’ll be doing the drive between 3:00 and 6:00. It’s normally a half hour drive, but it can easily take an hour or more - mostly due to heavy traffic flow out of Fort Eustis. Since there are still classes on Tuesday, you should take this into account.</p>

<p>Other disadvantages… depends on who you’re flying. US Airways out of Newport News is downright terrible. Count on flights being delayed/cancelled with regularity. On-time performance for US out of Newport News hovers around the 2nd-3rd percentile; you’ll likely be connecting in Philadelphia. It’s almost exclusively turboprop and regional jet service, if that matters to you. </p>

<p>Delta is usually much better for on-time performance and to my knowledge doesn’t fly any turboprops out of Newport News. Quite a few flights on MD-88s, which are at least somewhat nicer than CRJs. I think with Delta you have to connect in Atlanta, which may seem silly for some destinations. But when you consider that the flights are usually on time, you may be better off doing a circuitous route on Delta than a more direct route on US. Plus you’ll earn frequent flyer miles pretty quickly.</p>

<p>Airtran… I’m not familiar with their service. That might be your cheapest and most direct option for New York if you’re flying to La Guardia, but they don’t fly from Newport News to Albany or JFK.</p>

<p>What’s your home airport? I assume from your username it’s somewhere in New York, but which one?</p>

<p>Does the school offer any kind of shuttle to area airports? Or can you get to PHF by bus?</p>

<p>I took the airtran flight out of newport news to laguardia about 3-4 times my freshman year and had no problems (drive back to north jersey now). On big breaks like thanksgiving, winter, and spring breaks the school offers a shuttle service, but you can just schedule car service for about 25 bucks. I never had any delays while taking this flight, but i also usually got fairly lucky with the weather. this airtran flight in particular starts from florida, stops in newport news, and continues on its way to new york. i also remember there being a flight to boston as well from newport news. as for delays, traffic can be there from 3-6, but newport news is the smallest airport ive ever been to. it will take you 5-10 minutes at most once you get there to get your ticket and through security.</p>

<p>There’s quite a few free shuttles to the Newport News and Richmond airports that you can take, and a couple to the Norfolk airport. They’re run by the Student Assembly and are pretty handy.</p>

<p>It looks like the last AirTran flight out of Newport News for La Guardia is at 5:41. After that, you’re limited to Delta at 7:00 or US/UA at 7:20 or 8:30.</p>