Flying early is the obvious advice, but from the west coast you often don't have a lot of options given the time difference. If you leave here at 7 a.m., and have to make a connection, you're likely reaching the east coast in the evening.

And advice like "Avoid Philadelphia" or "Avoid Chicago" isn't real helpful if that's where you live, or where your work takes you.

Oops.

Early in the day is good advice for avoiding delays (assuming no weather-related stuff is involved). If you want to avoid long lines at the checkpoints, find out when the heavy departure blocks are at your airport and avoid them if you can.

My best luck has always been flying in/out of the secondary airport in a major city.

Houston? Choose a flight on Southwest, which avoids Bush Intercontiental in favor of less crowded Hobby.

Miami? Try Ft. Lauderdale. LA? Burbank instead.

An area's smaller airport has fewer flights taking off and landing, resulting in fewer delays caused by dozens of flights attempting to take off and land within minutes of each other. In addition, you usually save time with shorter check-in/security lines and closer parking.

Oh my Lord, the late flight into Midway is terrible. I prefer Midway to O'Hare but damn... if you don't get in before 9pm, it's horrible.

There must be a lot of people flying late in the day, but I never see them. I try to catch 6 or 7AM flights so by the time flights start getting backed up I'm already where I need to be. Getting somewhere after 1PM annoys me.

I live in Philly, and we DROVE to South Carolina today for the holidays. It was worth it not to deal with the hassle of flying at this time of year - or the hassle of flying out of Philly any time of year.

Too bad this wasn't posted yesterday. I am at the airport, delayed flying back home to Philadelphia. Wonderful.

a list i'm glad my state didn't make it in.