We asked readers to share their travel tales of woe. Some repsonded that travel is wonderful and — in so many words – we should all quit griping. Other told of sad, bad days in the air. Here, a few choice snippets. Join the conversation with the good the bad and the ugly–throw in a few travel tips, too.

From Gloria Gardner: “I’ve never slept in an airpot and I’ve never missed a connection. Lucky, yes, but also prepared.” Gardner books nonstops, uses a travel agent, checks her reservation at least several days before traveling and smiles rather than screams. “It makes things less stressful for me and the people around me if I’m pleasant.”

From Terry Srp: “I had a lousy flying experience that showed me how a good crew can make a bad experience tolerable. I became suddenly ill on a flight and the care I was given by the attendats and medical people who were on the same flight was incredible. ”

From Bethany Pearson: “I saw the blip about wanting travel horror stories from readers and boy, do I have a few.” She then proceeded to detail three, including the time a European airline went out of business. “It was the Venice to Paris [leg of our trip] that was horrific…On our morning of departure, we got up and took the water shuttle to the airport at 5:00 am….We looked at the flight status board to find our flight into, but nothing was there. No mention of the flight or the airline. We asked at information, ‘where can we find Volare airlines?’ It seems they went out of business about a month earlier. ‘It was on the news,’ we were told–in Italy, but not the U.S.!”

 From Mark Heywood: “I fly about 40,000 miles a year all on the same airline so I’m considered an ‘elite’ customer. Last winter I took my wife and six employees and their spouses to San Francisco for a convention…Iupgraded the wife and I to first class using miles…On the way back, our flight was canceled and the airline sent the seven couples on seven different ways back to MSP. The airline refused to honor my already redeemed miles for first class and sent us back to MSP in separate middle row seats. To add insult to injury, all my employees were back in MSP long before me. We got in at 10:30 p.m. and had a three hour drive to get home. So the loyal frequent flyer got kicked out of first class and got home at 2 a.m. and his employees all got to MSP before him. No wonder people hate to fly.”

Is there a silver lining to the economic downturn? People lucky enough to have the money to fly this season might think so, but then they might be duped. True, fewer people are flying this year. AAA today predicted a decline in the number of people traveling during the Thanksgiving holiday, the first decline since 2002. “Nearly 4.54 million plan to travel by airplane, a 7.2 percent decrease from the 4.89 million travelers who flew last year,” their press release reads. But airlines, in an effort to keep making money, have collectively cut the number of seats by 9 percent from last year. Travelers may be able to move through the airport more quickly, but planes will be just as full if not more so. That means anyone who has been bumped or missed a connection could have a difficult time  finding a seat on the next plane out.

Just like at airports, congestion in the air will be down, too. That’s thanks to President Bush opening up military airspace for commercial aircraft. Last year, two lanes were open on the East Coast. This year, the freeingup of airspace includes the Midwest, Southwest and West Coast.

Check Travel for tips on smooth flying this holiday season. A story on the subject is coming up Sunday, November 23.

While the cost of jet fuel has been dropping for weeks, airfares have not yet followed suit; the airlines are holding onto their fuel surcharges for the time being. Here’s a link to a timely NPR story. Meanwhile, other sorts of surcharges continue to multiply. Several airlines upped their fees for flying pets and unaccompanied children. George Hobica at Airfare Watchdog has the story. 

I’ve been watching the struggles of Sun Country from afar this fall and wondering if the airline will survive. Losing Sun Country would be a shame for many reasons, including healthy competition for Delta. But I would miss its service and comfort most of all. Amid an increasingly cramped and grungy mode of transport, Sun Country managed to provide relatively comfortable, competent and cheerful service (for which it was recognized as among the best in the nation for the third time in October.) Here in Boulder, I’m watching the similar struggles of Frontier, another small airline that’s been losing money. Like Sun Country, Frontier is banking on the busy winter vacation season to provide a cushion — and some profits.

For consumers, the question is when do you give up your loyalty for security? What if you book your vacation to Mexico for February, and the airline goes under at the end of January? Consumers who buy their tickets with credit cards typically are protected from the loss of the cost of the tickets, but booking a new flight on short notice could be prohibitively expensive. I’m planning a trip to theYucatan for the second week in April, and I’m really torn. The cheapest fares and direct flights are on Frontier. But April is just past the winter travel peak; the airline is going to go kabluey, it will likely happen as winter sales tail off. I haven’t made up my mind. If you’re planning a winter getaway, what are you going to do?

Welcome Delta! The airline is celebrating its takeover of Northwest with a nice little break for frequent flyers: It has eliminated the $25 to $100 fuel surcharges once assessed for WorkdPerks and SkyMiles award ticket travel. The airline is also dropping the $3 curbside check-in fee it had been charging.

On the other hand, the airline is adding a $15 fee for the first checked bag for domestic coach customers for travel on or after December 5. Second baggage fees will be $25. Chalk the change up to a bad economic situation — or Northwest: Delta explains that it is changing its fee structures to align with Northwest’s. To be fair, Delta was the last of the legacy carriers to charge for the first checked bag (see aforementioned bad economic situation). Customers already holding tickets and who are traveling on or after December 5 will be charged $50 for a second bag, but their first bag can fly free, in keeping with Delta’s previous policy.

Early next year, be prepared to give not only your name, but also your birth date and gender when booking a flight. That’s when the Transportation Security Administration, part of the Departmentof Homeland Security, will take over responsibility for checking airline passenger names against government watch lists in a program called “Secure Flight.” Airlines will forward the information they  gather to the government agency, which in turn will tell the airlines whether to print a boarding pass for the passenger and whether the person has been flagged for additional screening. Those decisions had been left to the airlines, armed with watch lists. Security officials say the changes will increase security and reduce the incidents of mistaken identity, in  which people with names similar to those on watch lists are wrongly barred or delayed from flights.