(MONEY Magazine) – Forget air rage. Nowadays airport rage may be the more prevalent syndrome. One out of every four flights is delayed, canceled or diverted, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT), and flight delays are on pace to set a record in 2000. The average delay, including sitting in the terminal and waiting on the tarmac, clocks in at 50 minutes. Biztravel.com, a booking website that promises a $100 refund if your flight is delayed for more than an hour and a full refund if your wait exceeds two hours, has already paid out $1 million this year.

What's to blame? Bad weather is the cause of most delays, but antiquated airport facilities and air-traffic-control systems don't help. Add to that labor disputes at some of the biggest carriers, including Continental, Delta and United. The number of passengers in the air is simply outpacing airline capacity, says Paul Hudson, executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project. "Plans call for only 14 new runways at 450 airports over the next seven years," he says. "That's a drop in the bucket." With no immediate help in sight, try these tips for combating delays, whether you're flying for business or a winter vacation.

SMART BOOKING Well before you arrive at the airport, you can increase your odds of departing on time and avoiding hassles in the airport.

Fly early. Pick a flight with an eye toward what could hold you up--a tight connection, a congested airport or a chronically late flight. Not surprisingly, Friday and Sunday evenings and Monday mornings are the busiest travel times. Early-morning flights are more likely to take off promptly because the daily ripple effect of delay upon delay hasn't had time to build. Says Bestfares.com editor Tom Parsons: "The last plane I would pick is the last flight of the day."

Limit your layovers. Two departures double your chance of a delay, but if you can't get a nonstop flight, don't accept a tight layover. Airlines often schedule connections with as little as 20 or 30 minutes to spare. To further increase your margin of safety, pick the hub with the better on-time record. Instead of Chicago O'Hare (76% of departures on time in September, the latest month for which statistics are available), fly through Pittsburgh (83%). Or choose Salt Lake City (87%) over Dallas/Fort Worth (77%).

Study flight history. You can look up a wealth of monthly on-time performance statistics from the DOT--by airport, airline and specific flight--at www .bts.gov/ntda/oai. The single most telling one is the flight's on-time record, which reservation agents are required to disclose if you ask. The booking site Expedia.com (www.expedia.com) also compiles on-time stats for every flight. Say you're flying from Chicago to New York City. You may want to avoid mid- to late-afternoon flights. In September, American's 3 p.m. to La Guardia arrived more than 15 minutes late 93% of the time, with delays averaging 76 minutes. The 10 a.m. flight was late 40% of the time, by an average of 17 minutes.

One caveat: Airlines don't factor cancellations into their on-time records, but you can look up those stats as well on the DOT site. United, Alaska, Delta and American had the highest cancellation rates in September; TWA and Southwest were the best of the majors.

Pick paper. If you have to scramble to get on another airline's flight, you'll have a head start if you're holding a paper ticket. Sure, an e-ticket is convenient, but it's not good at another airline. More on this later.

Ask for alerts. You can get advance word on flight delays if you carry a cell phone, pager or PDA with wireless capability. If you fly Northwest (www.nwa.com) or Frontier (www.frontierairlines.com), you can sign up to have arrival and departure updates sent to your pager or Web-enabled cell phone. United (www.ual.com) has a similar service called Proactive Paging, and US Airways plan to introduce alerts early this year. If you buy your ticket at Travelocity.com or Biztravel .com, the site will notify you of delays via your Web-enabled phone, PDA or pager if you request the service. Expedia will automatically call you if your flight is delayed by 30 minutes or more.

AIRPORT MANEUVERS Despite every precaution, you may still get to the airport and find that your flight is late or canceled. Here's what to do.

Don't wait in line. Head straight to a phone and call the airline's reservation number, where you're more likely to get accurate information about departure times and where you can rebook if your flight is very late or canceled. (If you have Web access, you can track the whereabouts of your flight at Trip.com.)

Members of elite frequent-flier programs have a few advantages, including a dedicated customer-service number (which is on your card) and, in some cases, first dibs on seats on later flights.

Switch airlines. If your flight has been canceled and there are no later flights on that airline, you'll have to move fast to beat the 300 or so other grumpy passengers who want to get onto another airline's flight. The problem is, centralized flight information boards for every airline are scarce. Here's where having a Web-enabled cell phone or PDA can pay off. Depending on your service, you can reach Travelocity, Expedia or Trip.com, where you can look up all available flights.

What you have going for you is the DOT's Rule 240, which says that in the event of any flight irregularity--with the exception of bad weather--the original airline must endorse your ticket to the next available flight on any airline. Nine of the 10 major U.S. carriers accept one another's tickets. (Southwest does not.)

As long as you have a paper ticket, you can usually go right to another airline's gate. If you have an e-ticket, you'll need to wait in line to have a paper ticket printed and endorsed. Only a few airlines honor one another's e-tickets--American Airlines and British Airways do, for instance. But don't you have to get your ticket authorized regardless of whether it's paper or virtual? Airline insiders concede that even though the rules say yes, most airlines will accept an unendorsed ticket, especially if it's full fare. You have a good chance of getting on another flight even with a nonrefundable, discounted ticket.

JUST COMPENSATION

Contrary to what you might expect, airlines are not required by law to compensate you for delays unless you're bumped from an oversold flight and arrive more than an hour late. But if you complain to the airline afterward--particularly if you're a frequent flier--you may get something in return, such as bonus miles. The best way to complain is to write to the airline. If your travel delays caused you to miss Chinese New Year in Beijing, it may be reasonable to ask for tickets to next year's celebration. But if your travel delays caused you to lose three hours of vacation time, you're more likely to get extra frequent-flier miles.

--ANDREA BENNETT