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Aviation safety experts say passengers can minimize the risk when flying this summer by being strategic when selecting airports, seats, planes and departure times.

“When we know there’s a problem someplace, I simply avoid that airport,” Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, told Forbes. “So I'm not flying into DCA (Reagan National) or Newark, no way—and if I hear the problems persist at Houston or Denver, for example, then I'll take them off the list, too.” John Cox, aviation safety expert and retired commercial airline pilot, also recommended avoiding Newark for now. “Think about maybe utilizing LaGuardia or Kennedy or Philly or White Plains and not be dependent on an airport that’s experiencing the kind of delays that Newark has,” he said. These days, many travelers are making similar calculations, including Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s wife. The average number of travelers flying out of Newark has dropped by as much as 20% compared to this time last year, according to Transportation Security Administration data reviewed by NBC News.

Connecting flights might be cheaper, but direct flights are safer. “You decrease your exposure to anything bad happening by going with a nonstop flight, as opposed to a connecting flight, where now you’ve got two flights you’ve got to worry about in terms of not only safety, but delays and cancellations,” Jeff Guzzetti, a retired aircraft accident investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told Forbes. “If you're looking at statistics, taking a nonstop flight cuts your risk in half, because the riskiest times of any flight are takeoffs and landings,” Schiavo said.

Many travelers default to major hubs—but some of the nation’s busiest airports have been experiencing the worst air traffic issues, including technology outages and staffing shortages. “Because of the volume of traffic, the hubs will tend to hang up,” Cox said. Luckily, said Schiavo, travelers have many other options. “We have over 500 towered airports in this country, and I would definitely recommend that people start to look at those secondary airports, where there’s less congestion,” she said, adding, “I have to go to Ohio a lot and I fly into Akron-Canton. That's not my destination, but it’s a beautiful little airport, and I’m out of that airport in five minutes.” Instead of flying into Reagan National, Schiavo is choosing Dulles these days, “even if it means I take a long cab or Uber ride into DC.”

“Commercial airline crashes are extremely rare but, even then, most people don't realize that airline crashes are almost always survivable,” Guzzetti said, citing NTSB statistics showing 81% of commercial airline passengers survive most accidents. He pointed out the Delta plane that flipped and caught fire after a hard landing in Toronto in February, saying, “The airplane was trashed, but everyone walked away.” He stresses the key factor is being able to evacuate the plane quickly. “When you look at the statistics, you want to increase your chances of survivability. I always choose my own seat, either in the emergency exit or very close to it,” he said. For the same reason, Guzzetti avoids wearing sandals and flip-flops as a precaution. “If I had to get out of the plane very quickly, I could do it.”

When flight shopping, consider more than price and departure time. Whether booking directly from the airline or through a third-party platform, pay attention to the type of plane you’ll be flying in, which you can typically see with an extra click. “I usually pick larger airplanes if I have the option,” Guzzetti said. “In other words, wide-body like a [Boeing] 777 or 787, as opposed to a regional jet, just because it's larger, it's more comfortable, and usually larger airplanes have more sophisticated safety systems.”

Two relatively new commercial airlines that launched during the Covid pandemic offer nonstop service between many popular U.S. destinations. Breeze Airways offers direct service on more than 600 U.S. routes and Avelo Airlines connects roughly four dozen U.S. destinations. “These nonstop flights cut down on congestion, cut down on passenger angst, and use some of these less-crowded airports,” Schiavo said.

“Flights that go out earlier in the day are less likely to hang up, and that's particularly true in the summertime,” Cox said. It’s important to understand that storms in one region of the country can quickly turn into a national air travel problem. Afternoon and evening flights tend to be delayed more often than morning departures because airlines reuse planes and crews for multiple trips during the day, so a delay early in the day creates a domino effect later on. “Afternoon flights have more issues. That's borne out by statistics,” added Schiavo.

Having a heads-up that your flight will be delayed has big advantages—especially if you know before everyone else on the flight. “There's an app called Flighty that tells you a lot,” Cox said. “Where is the airplane that’s going to fly my flight? How late is it?” If your plane is delayed on an earlier flight, it will most likely be delayed for your flight, too. Having that kind of information lets you be proactive about making necessary changes. “Passengers should download their airline app to get real time updates on delays or gate changes,” said Chadwin Kendall, an associate professor and FAA chief instructor in the Department of Aviation and Aerospace Science at Metropolitan State University of Denver. “Many of those apps allow you to rebook via the app directly if there is a cancellation, instead of having to go and talk to a gate agent.”

FAA data show that, for many U.S. airports, summer weather is responsible for far more delays than winter weather. By consulting the FAA’s flight delay map, flyers can see which airports are having issues in real time. Hover over the airport to see the reason for the delay. “The main mission of air traffic controllers is to keep airplanes separated,” explained Kendall. When an airport becomes too congested for air traffic control to handle, or if there is another issue, like bad weather or runway construction, the FAA may issue a ground delay, which slows the flow of arrivals into that airport until the airspace is less congested. “Often, the safest thing is just to leave the airplane on the ground [at its origin airport].”

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