This past break, I had the poor luck of flying home to Denver, Colo., on the day that a blizzard swept through the state. Likely through a good deal of Colorado snow hubris, I didn’t think much about the weather forecast calling for snow and lots of it all across Colorado. “Bah, it’s just a little snow,” I said to myself, believing full well that Colorado, of all places, would handle it in stride.

Before the flight, I watched as the snow totals mounted and the reports flooded in from Colorado over the news networks. Denver’s airport ended up closing, and I wound up stuck in Salt Lake City. There, the gate agent told me that the earliest confirmed seat into Denver the airline could give me was for Christmas morning, four days later, and that even that wasn’t a guarantee since Denver’s airport wouldn’t reopen for almost two days because of the snow piling up on the runways. Aggravated, I took the hotel discount voucher and left the airport.

Hoping for the possibility of an earlier travel arrangement, I called train and bus companies to see if any of them were traveling to Denver. None of them were. Two days later, Greyhound restarted its service in and out of Denver, and I was able to get a ticket for a bus late in the evening. I could see that there were many people who had been stranded in the terminal. The lines for the bus were extremely long that evening. Even after three full busloads came and went, still half of the ticketed passengers hadn’t gotten on a bus. Nonetheless, Greyhound held firm in its policy to let those passengers who had been stranded the longest be the first on the buses. The fourth bus—an independent one that Greyhound had chartered to help with the load—was my charm, and after four hours waiting in line and 11 hours on a bus, I finally made it to Denver, two days before Christmas. Even after mine left, more buses were already on the way to ensure that all those who were stuck made it through to Denver.

This was in stark contrast to the policy of the airlines, in which confirmed passengers were given precedence over those who were swept up with the storm. These unfortunate souls had to try and fly standby, some waiting for up to five days for a seat in line after line. Meanwhile, they watched others who had tickets just one day after the storm board their plane without suffering any delay.

I can understand that the weather can screw things up royally, especially when it comes to travel, but the unforgiving policies of many airlines left some people with vacations nearly cut in half, or obliterated by the fact that they couldn’t get where they were going. The airlines should have a system similar to Greyhound’s that allows for those stranded to get where they are going as fast as possible. Notify the people who haven’t made it to the airport that their flight has been bumped in favor of a stranded passenger. At least the bumped passenger won’t have to sleep in the airport for nearly a week.