Locust Valley travel firm takes plan B route
It’s on nights like tonight when Rebecca Alesia earns her keep.
Alesia, founder of Wanderology, a Locust Valley-based luxury travel firm, has spent Friday evening scrambling to serve clients impacted by the FAA ground stop, whether that’s meant finding them a hotel, a rental car, or — best of all — a flight that has been able to take off.
“My client that was waiting for his flight to Germany, we advised a wait-and-see approach. And he's actually in the air right now,” Alesia said in a telephone interview Friday night.
The advice was different for another client scheduled to fly home from Fort Lauderdale Friday night.
“As soon as I saw what was going on, I just messaged with him. We rebooked him on a flight tomorrow afternoon and got him a hotel room for tonight, because if you don't have to travel when this kind of thing is going on, to me, it's advisable not to. It just creates chaos,” she said.
Travel professionals are better equipped than the average flyer to navigate that chaos, said Alesia.
Where most travelers reach for Google to find the status of their flight, Alesia said travel professionals have access to databases with “instant access to live inventory on all of the airlines” and are able to grab flights and hold them for short periods while clients make their decisions.
“I'm able to use that same system to book hotels and see live inventory in hotels and often able to put a provisional hold on space,” said Alesia, noting that one of the biggest challenges displace travelers will face in Friday’s ground stop is finding a hotel room.
“When a major city hub airport goes completely down, sometimes there could be quite literally nowhere to stay,” she said. “So I think it behooves people to act decisively.”
Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.
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