4 tips for breezing through the airport this holiday season

Even if you're going to one of the best airports in the U.S., navigating these sprawling environments can be daunting - especially at this time of year when they're bustling with ever-growing numbers of holiday travelers.

As someone writing a book on airports, I've spent a lot of time talking to the people who keep these mini-cities running. Here are my tips for getting through an airport during the holiday season with minimal agita - and maximal joy.

Practice good "bag hygiene"

Matt Needham at the architecture firm HOK, who's worked on myriad airport designs, points out a key, overlooked aspect. "Airports are fundamentally about two things," he says. "One is passengers - two is their bags." Once a passenger drops off a bag, it takes an unseen journey, typically longer than the one made by the passenger, through a warren of spaces the public will never see, but that often comprises more than half of the terminal space.

Last year, some 6.9 out of 1,000 bags were mishandled (on international flights, the rate is roughly five times higher). To make sure your bag makes it through, good "bag hygiene," as airport people call it, is essential. Even if you think those old baggage stickers make you seem like a seasoned traveler, remove them - the baggage system might scan the wrong bar code and send it to a place you've already been. Have a fancy leather I.D. tag hanging from your bag? Tuck it in or take it off - those can get snagged at any number of points along the miles of conveyor belts and sortation systems. "Those get ripped off all the time," Art Masri, a sales director with Vanderlande, a company that makes baggage handling systems, notes. Once, when replacing a system in Orlando, he found dozens of old tags. "It was like a passage through time - there was Hooters Air and all these old airlines that got swallowed by the majors."

It doesn't hurt to add an Air Tag or other tracker that monitors the GPS location of your bag - mostly for your own peace of mind. If you're waiting at the baggage carousel, and seemingly every other bag has already come out, you can instantly see that it's on the way. And if your bag does go astray, a GPS tag can help you recover it.

Beware the airport effect

I've got TSA PreCheck®, I never check bags, and I whisk through security with Ryan Bingham -like efficiency. But unlike those seasoned flyers who boast about showing up with minutes to spare, I always arrive with a built-in safety cushion of time. Why?

Because airports - even the best ones - are unpredictable.

Sgt. Karla Rodriguez of the Los Angeles Airport Police sees hundreds of thousands of people enter the "horseshoe," the one-way road connecting LAX's terminals, every day - and she's observed a strange phenomenon. "It's an inside joke, but we call it the 'twilight zone,' " she says. The moment people arrive, they become preternaturally single-minded - and oblivious to their surroundings. She has seen travelers abandon their rental car on the access road in order to not miss their flight. She's seen people step through an alarm-triggering door marked "airport personnel only" to have a quick smoke.

Airports, admittedly, can bring out the strange in people. "Not many people will normally order Guinness at seven o'clock in the morning, but they do it in airports," says Ibrahim Ibrahim, managing director of Portland, a London-based design consultancy. "Not many people will impulsively buy a new Vuitton handbag, but they do it in airports."

Because people in airports are hard to predict, airports themselves are also hard to predict. So play it safe - and give yourself plenty of cushion time - to account for the unexpected. The airlines (and I) recommend three hours for an international flight, two for a domestic. (I also recommend scheduling your Lyft ride to the airport, with 15 extra minutes of buffer, the night before.)

Get TSA PreCheck® - but don't always use it

The checkpoint, for many, can be the most stressful part of an already stressful environment. That's because it's a line with the perfect characteristics to aggravate us (as theorized by MIT's Richard Larson): We're under time pressure (thus the wait feels longer), we generally don't know how long the wait will take (ditto), and we might see another lane moving faster or some passengers being allowed to cut the line (violating our sense of social justice).

As with all aspects of travel, I would advise taking a wider, Zen-like approach. After all, we may freak out about spending ten minutes in the TSA line but then wait happily for fifteen minutes at a Starbucks on the other side.

Another option to manage line anxiety is to sign up for TSA PreCheck®, which allows you to get on a (usually) shorter line and keep your laptop stowed and your shoes on. Kelly Reynolds, who manages the operations at ATL, notes: "A lot of people don't know what [TSA] PreCheck® is," she says, "even if the product's been around for a decade." People, she says, will declare, at the entrance to the TSA PreCheck® line, "I'm pre-checked. I checked in online last night!" Not so - you have to submit paperwork (and set up an interview) 60 days in advance of your next trip. Global Entry (another pre-screening option that offers expedited processing on your return, too) takes longer to acquire - but I find it to be even more of a time saver.

Pro tip: Even if you are already approved for TSA PreCheck® or Global Entry, it's worth looking at the "standard" line. About 10% of the time, Reynolds says, it will be faster - especially during peak hours.

Before leaving TSA, take a breath

The TSA checkpoint is to travelers as the summit push is to mountain climbers; once you've cleared it, you're in a mildly narcotized, blissful state (airport retailers call this the "golden hour" for sales). Small wonder, then, that a lot of what's lost at airports is lost at checkpoints, as folks rush away to buy that Louis Vuitton bag.

There are some simple steps to ensure you don't leave anything behind. One, reserve an exterior pocket of your carry-on for all the smaller stuff (phone, headphones, wallet, etc.) rather than tossing them into bins or bowls - way less chance you'll leave something behind that way. And, two, be mindful and take a beat before leaving TSA behind.

Remember, once you're through, you'll hopefully have plenty of time to relax and enjoy all your airport has to offer, which may include amenities you may never have expected. And, hey, you may even find that you enjoy that extra airport time more than you could have imagined.

Tom Vanderbilt is the author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and is currently at work on a book about airports, to be published by Knopf.

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