The holidays bring with them joy, family, and of course, busy airports. The holiday season is probably the worst season out of the year to travel period, however when you’re traveling on business, it can be especially tortuous. Not only is your agenda usually on a deadline, but it’s not like you’re traveling for the hell of it or even somewhere you remotely want to go. To simply keep your sanity, it’s imperative that you do all that’s in your power to make your air travel as painless as possible.

With that in mind, I suggest taking a look at the following article from MSNBC by Tara Weiss on avoiding holiday travel headaches.

I think the most valuable tip that I took out of this article concerned the U.S. Registered Traveler program. In a nutshell, it allows you to get a security threat assessment (seems like you get pre-screened) for certain airports. This means that instead of having to wait in the regular security line, you can wait in a much shorter security line. The downside is that it seems to only be in use at a limited number of airports, and it does cost about $100. However, I would imagine that you if travel on regular basis you could probably get your company to eat the cost. It’s a definite must-have if you travel regularly to any of the airports it covers.

To add to Tara’s list, one thing that I always do is put my wallet, cell phone, keys, badges, etc. in my carry-on bag before I go through security. The one thing that seems to slow everybody up is when they start rooting through their pockets right when they get to the front of the security line. Not only does this annoy everybody behind you, but it slows you down and maybe even causes you to be searched more extensively off to the side. I recommend giving it a shot as it works pretty well for me.

Also, another tip is to wait at an empty gate. What does this mean? If you are already confirmed with a seat on your flight, all you’re doing at the gate is waiting to board. This usually means jostling for seats with other passengers or even worse standing. Instead, find a gate that doesn’t have a flight for awhile and camp out there (there should be one not too far away). Check on your flight every once and awhile, but otherwise use the extra room to spread out and relax. Just make sure that you aren’t too far away from your gate so that you don’t miss any important announcements.

Overall, try not to stress yourself out during this busy season. Sometimes, you just can’t do anything about delays at the airport. Grab a book, an overpriced coffee, treat yourself to a day old Dunkin Donut, and wait it out.