DALLAS — Despite inflation and memories of past holiday travel slumps, millions of people are expected to hit airports and highways in record numbers over the Thanksgiving holiday.
The busiest days to fly are Tuesday and Wednesday and the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 2.6 million passengers on Tuesday and 2.7 million passengers on Wednesday.
Sunday will draw the largest crowd with an estimated 2.9 million passengers, which will surpass the record set on June 30.
Meanwhile, AAA predicts that 55.4 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home between next Wednesday and the Sunday after Thanksgiving, with roads likely to be most congested on Wednesday.
Weather can disrupt air and road traffic.
The storm system is expected to move from the southern Plains to the Northeast on Tuesday and Wednesday. Parts of Maine, Vermont and northern New Hampshire are expected to get 3 to 7 inches of snow between Tuesday night and Wednesday.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said during a news conference today that the government has worked to better prepare for holiday travel by hiring more air traffic controllers, opening new air routes along the East Coast and providing grants to airports for snow plowing and deicing equipment.
A long line of people line up at Los Angeles International Airport on Nov. 21. 2023 by Thanksgiving. Photo by DAVID SWANSON/AFP via Getty Images
He warned travelers to check road conditions and flight times before leaving home.
“Mother Nature, of course, is the X factor in all of this,” he said.
Good news for airplane and car travelers: Prices are coming down.
Airfare averaged $268 per ticket, down 14% from a year ago, according to travel site Hopper.
Gasoline prices are down about 37 cents a gallon from this time last year. The national average was $3.29 per gallon on Tuesday, according to AAA, down from $3.66 a year ago.
A survey of GasBuddy users found that despite cheaper pump prices, the number of people planning to take a long driving trip this Thanksgiving hasn’t changed much from last year.
Patrick De Haan, an analyst for a price-tracking service, said inflation had eased but some things like food were still getting more expensive. Consumers also charge more on credit cards and save less.
“Sure, they love the drop in gas prices, but many Americans are spending in other ways this summer and they may not be ready to open their wallets for a Thanksgiving trip,” De Haan said.
Jennifer Bonham chose to take the train from New York to Kansas City to spend Thanksgiving with her fiance after checking flights and finding they were “astronomically expensive.”
“My fiancé has an idea. He’s like, I wonder if there’s a train? So we went looking and honestly it was the best price we could find. I don’t have money. I am a single mother. The cheaper, the better,” said Bonham, changing trains at Chicago’s Union Station with her teenage daughter.
Cars are stuck in traffic on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago on November 21, 2023. According to AAA, the road will be most congested on Wednesday with people traveling for the holiday. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday travel season, and many still haven’t shaken off last December’s nightmare before Christmas, when a severe winter storm grounded thousands of flights and left millions of passengers stranded.
Scott Keyes, founder of travel site Going, is cautiously optimistic that holiday air travel won’t be the same mess. So far this year, he said, airlines have avoided major disruptions.
“Everyone understands that airlines can’t control Mother Nature,” Keyes said. “What really upsets people is the controllable cancellations — widespread disruption because the airlines can’t get their act together because their systems melt down like Southwest did over Christmas.”
In fact, Southwest did not recover as quickly as other airlines from last year’s storm when its planes, pilots and flight attendants were stuck out of position and its crew rescheduling system was disrupted.
The airline canceled nearly 17,000 flights before correcting operations. Federal regulators told Southwest recently that it could be fined for failing to help stranded travelers.
Southwest officials said they have purchased additional deicing trucks and heating equipment and will increase staffing at cold-weather airports depending on the forecast.
The company said it has also updated its crew scheduling technology.
US airlines are generally better about stranded passengers. As of October, they canceled 38% fewer flights than in the same period in 2022.
From June to August — when thunderstorms can engulf air traffic — cancellation rates fell 18% compared to 2022.
Travelers go through security at Denver International Airport, Monday, Nov. 20, 2023. According to the TSA, an estimated 2.9 million people will travel on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.AP Photo/David Zalubowski
Even so, consumer complaints about airline services have soared, according to the US Department of Transportation. There were so many complaints, the agency said, that it was only compiling figures through May.
The airlines, in turn, have blamed the Federal Aviation Administration, which they say cannot keep up with growing air traffic.
In fact, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general reported this summer that the FAA has made only “limited efforts” to improve air traffic controller shortages, particularly at major facilities in New York, Miami and Jacksonville, Florida.
Meanwhile, staffing levels in other parts of the airline industry have largely recovered since losing tens of thousands of workers early in the pandemic.
Passenger airlines have added more than 140,000 workers – an increase of almost 40% – according to government figures updated last week.
The number of people employed in this business is the largest since 2001, when there were more airlines.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
