The Baltimore connection clicks

Given the dearth of international departures these days from Pittsburgh International and the alarming uncertainty of making international connections at other domestic airports, it's time for local travelers to consider other options.

Recently, we signed up for a cruise that would board in the port of Tromso, in the far north of Norway, and debark in Reykjavik, Iceland. After researching the situation, our best overseas flight option turned out to be on Icelandair, the plucky international carrier once known as Icelandic.

I had flown Icelandic overseas several times back in the 1970s, when it offered one of the least expensive ways to get to Europe. While low price was a factor, I also found it romantic to catch connecting flights to Luxembourg and London from Icelandic's hub at Keflavik Airport outside of Reykjavik. From there, the airline now offers direct service to 17 European destinations, including Oslo, which as it turned out was the best place for us to make a connection to Tromso.

Another plus was that our return flight would be from Reykjavik, but also attractive was that Icelandair offers daily round-trips from Baltimore Washington International, along with Minneapolis, Boston and JFK.

Unfortunately, when I checked available connections between Pittsburgh International and BWI, I found only three direct flights, all on Southwest Airlines. Alas, none meshed smoothly with our international connection.

There was a flight scheduled for 5:50 p.m., but connections could be tight for an 8:55 p.m. Icelandair departure, and as mentioned above, on time operation is no sure bet. The safe option had us leaving Pittsburgh at 1:40 p.m., making for a six-hour layover in Baltimore.

Even worse, our return arrival time in Baltimore was one hour after Southwest's last departure to Pittsburgh, which would mean an overnight stay.

Other flight options between Pittsburgh and Baltimore, including those from US Airways, all involved making connections in places like Philadelphia and Washington and Newark, resulting in journeys of six or seven hours, and for fares several times more than Southwest. Go figure.

Given the uncertainty of flight schedules these days, our obvious solution was driving to Baltimore and leaving our car at the airport there.

A quick Internet search turned up a variety of parking options at BWI. I chose an online special offered by Econopark, an off-site lot with frequent shuttle service, for $6.95 a day. I also found several hotels in the BWI area that allow up to two weeks of free parking with a one-night stay. That would have worked out to about the same price as the parking lot.

Rather than spend a night in Baltimore on our return, we decided to drive home that night. Though it meant adding a four-hour drive to the end of our trip, we wouldn't have gotten home much faster even if there had been a convenient flight between Baltimore and Pittsburgh and assuming all flights landed and took off on time, certainly no sure proposition these days.

It seemed a no-brainer. So when our travel day came, we jumped in our car about 2 p.m. and drove to Baltimore. With a short pit stop in Breezewood, it was an easy, four-hour ride in air-conditioned comfort accompanied by a nice selection of music and a book on CD. We pulled into the parking lot just past 6 p.m. and were at the airport 30 minutes later, easily making Icelandair's suggested two-hour advance arrival time. Check-in was quick and easy in BWI's new international terminal, and we were in the lounge relaxing with plenty of time before departure.

Although BWI doesn't have a wide menu of international departures, it offers infinitely more than Pittsburgh at the moment.

British Airways provides daily nonstop service directly to London Heathrow, with a wide range of connections from there. Other BWI international flights are offered by Air Jamaica (Montego Bay and Kingston) and Air Greenland, as well as USA 3000 (Cancun, Bermuda and the Dominican Republic) and North American Air, which offers service to Ghana and Nigeria.

Driving to Baltimore worked out even better than we thought. We wound up coming home three days earlier than planned. We had no trouble changing our Icelandair reservations in Reykjavik, but if we'd also had domestic reservations, I suspect things would have been much more complicated and costly.

Our return Icelandair flight touched down in Baltimore exactly on time, at 7:05 p.m., and we were on the road to Pittsburgh by 8:15 p.m. We were certainly weary. Our waking day was already 15 hours old and included a five-hour flight and a four-hour time difference from Reykjavik. But we weren't particularly jet-lagged, and there was something comforting about decompressing from the trip, relaxing in our car with our own music and several chapters of our CD story.

Despite the hordes of truckers and lots of construction on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, we made it home in just four hours.

In fact, the only moment of excitement on the drive home was on Interstate 70 between Frederick and Hagerstown, Md., when a large deer suddenly appeared in our headlights. The buck straddled the dotted line between the two lanes, and fortunately I managed to avoid it without losing control of the car. The moment was reminiscent of one of those safety-conscious car ads, but having dodged that disaster by luck and quick reaction, I felt comfortable we'd make it home without further incident, which we did at just 12:30 on the car's clock.

As far as a cost comparison, two weeks extended parking in Baltimore ($93) was $2.80 more expensive than it would have been here. Even with Southwest's very fair promotional fare, two round-trip tickets would have totaled $196. Our gas and tolls were $68.

So it cost much less to drive to BWI than it would have been to fly from Pittsburgh International. The reduced schedule anxiety and increased ticketing flexibility were certainly pluses.

Bottom line: until we get some direct international service from here, consider BWI when making plans to fly to Europe. And until domestic airlines start to operate their scheduled routes with more reliability, I will certainly consider driving to another airport if offers a possibility of making a direct international connection.