Amid COVID-19, Weather Now Adding to Already Stressful Holiday Travel

The COVID-19 pandemic isn't the only thing making the already stressful holiday travel season worse.

If COVID-19-related staff shortages haven't made holiday flying enough of an ordeal, now the weather is threatening to make things even worse as a winter storm is expected to hit the Midwest. About 18 states are bracing for snow.

Travel expert Pauline Frommer has this tip if you're stranded at the airport and trying to rebook travel.

“Get on your smartphone, but don't call the number everybody else is calling. Instead call either the airline's international number, which will be listed on their website or call the Spanish language line. They will have folks who speak English there and usually the line is shorter,” she told Inside Edition.

Meanwhile, the new five-day COVID-19 isolation period adopted by some airlines is sparking concern among flight attendants.

“We believe this is the wrong move for aviation as it accepts that infectious people will be put back on the job or flying as passengers on our planes,” said Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

Frommer didn't argue the point.

“The flight attendants are on the front lines,” Frommer said. “They need to be comfortable that science is guiding these decisions, rather than profit.”

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