Readers and the role traffic plays in their lives

Our biggest "challenge" is getting to LAX. The freeways impact our decisions about when to fly. This is a bigger factor than price when choosing flights. We don't want to depart LAX at 9 a.m., which would mean checking in by 7a.m., and leaving the house at 5:30-6 a.m., in horrible commute traffic.

Conversely, we never want to land at LAX between 4 - 6 p.m., since the 405 is a parking lot.

Our last trip in July necessitated taking a flight leaving LAX at 9:20 a.m. We opted to stay at an airport hotel the night before so we could drive down at our leisure and just simply take the hotel shuttle to the airport at a reasonable time the next morning with the peace of mind knowing we would get to the airport in plenty of time to check in and go through security. (of course, our flight got cancelled, and we ended up killing time at LAX for 12, count 'em, 12 hours before we were able to fly out)(that is another story).

So, the congested freeways certainly influence the times we choose to fly. It can be a long, tedious drive otherwise.

-Janet Ballin