There's generally disheartening news for business people and vacationers intending to fly on business or on vacation this summer, according to a recent article published in U.S. News & World Report. Not only have flight delays increased, but so, too, have the number of passengers impacted per plane. For some, the news was worse than for others. Ranking major airports based on a combination of the percentage of flights delayed and the average load of departing planes, the U.S. News article branded Detroit's Wayne County Airport as the nations "most miserable airport".

Official Department of Transportation numbers paint a frustrating picture for Motown's frequent fliers. Thirty-nine percent of flights at Detroit leave the tarmac late. Combined with an average load factor of just under seventy-seven percent - meaning that passenger flights leaving the Motor City are nearly 77 percent full - Detroit's airport offers the most misery to the largest number of passengers when flights are delayed.

Because I live near Detroit and occasionally travel to nearby Chicago or Cleveland on business, these statistics got me wondering about the advantages - if any - of traveling by car to these destinations. Thanks to some other advice in the article, it was quite simple for me to price and then compare the cost of driving and flying to each of these cities.

The first step in the process was to check out fuelcostcalculator.com.

Maintained by the American Automobile Association (AAA), this website makes it easy to input your starting point and destination along with the make, model and year of manufacture of your vehicle. Using MPG estimates for your particular vehicle and the average gas price for your neck of the woods, AAA's fuel cost calculator rapidly computes the distance, the quantity of fuel required and total price of the gas for a typical drive from in my case - Detroit to Chicago. In my case, I learned that I could expect to consume 10.58 gallons of gas for the 275-mile drive to the Windy City at at a ballpark fuel cost at just over 33 dollars (33.23). The calculator also computed the round-trip cost of the drive, in this case, 66.46.

To compare this to the cost of flying, I next visited sidestep.com.

Sidestep appeals to me because it scours hundreds of airline and discounted fare websites for the best fare and then lets me book my flight directly with the airline in question instead of using an intermediary like Orbitz, Travelocity or Expedia. Dealing with the airline directly and not through a third-party ticket broker, makes it easier and possibly less costly if fees are involved to rebook if necessary.

At sidestep.com, I located an American Airlines non-stop flight that would whisk me from Detroit to Chicago on a Tuesday and return me the following Thursday at a total round-trip cost of 119.00 dollars. Not at all a bad price, but still roughly twice as expensive as the cost of traveling by car. And the price did not factor in the cost of airport parking or any added airport fees or taxes.

Because I enjoy driving, the decision to drive to Chicago on my next business trip was an obvious one. My route takes me right by the Detroit airport anyway and I'd rather spend my time driving through the scenic countryside of Western Michigan than battling long lines and possible delays at the airport. As an added bonus, it's nice to have my own car in Chicago and also nice to save on the cost of a rental.

Whether a decision like mine adds up in your case depends to a large extent on your starting point and final destination. Even though it's still marginally less expensive for me to drive from Detroit to Los Angeles than it is to fly, for example, I'd never dream of making this long drive part of a business trip.

As a rule it's the shorter trips, on the order of 250 to 450 miles, where driving makes sense. Decide for yourself by comparing the cost of flying and the cost of driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Washington, D.C. to Boston, or Miami to Orlando using the tools available at fuelcostcalculator.com and sidestep.com.