You never thought summer travel would be easy?
Highways and airports are likely to be congested over the next few days as Americans head out for the Memorial Day weekend vacation and then return home.
AAA predicts the weekend will be the busiest summer holiday weekend in two decades, with 43.8 million people expected to travel at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and Monday. The Transportation Security Administration has said up to 3 million people could pass through airport checkpoints on Friday alone.
And that's just a taste of what's to come. U.S. airlines expect to carry record numbers of passengers this summer. Their industry group estimates that 271 million travelers will take to the air between June 1st and August 31st, up from, you guessed it, the 255 million travelers recorded last summer. Break records.
The annual display of travel fever comes at a time when Americans say in polls they are worried about the economy and the direction of the country.
A slowdown, and in some cases a reversal, of the massive price increases of the past two years may be helping the situation.
Airfares are down 6% and hotel rates are down 0.4% compared to a year ago, according to government statistics released last week. Rental car and truck rates are down 10%. The national price of gasoline is about $3.60 a gallon, about 6 cents higher than a year ago, according to AAA.
Johannes Thomas, CEO of hotel and travel search company Trivago, said he believes more customers are feeling the pain as prices, while flat, remain at much higher levels than before the pandemic. He said customers are booking earlier, staying closer to home, shortening trips and compromising on accommodations to stay in three-star hotels instead of five-star ones.
Many travelers have their own cost-saving strategies, such as combining work and pleasure into the same trip.
“I've generally been able to adapt by traveling at odd times: flying out late at night, arriving early in the morning, staying longer than planned, and working remotely,” says the clean energy startup. said Lauren Hartl, an investor and Boston resident.
Hartl, who flew from Boston to Dallas for a work meeting on Wednesday, plans to attend a summer family gathering in North Carolina, but otherwise will travel closer to home, perhaps by train rather than plane. I'm considering a trip to
Katie Shust, a babysitter and piano teacher in Maine, said her round-trip ticket from Boston to Dallas cost $386. She said it was “not that expensive,” but more expensive than the $200 to $300 she previously paid to visit her family in Texas.
Shust is planning a beach vacation in Florida in July. High prices may discourage other trips, but “If I really want to go somewhere, I'm the type of person who will spend all my time off work thinking about how to make this happen.''
As usual, the majority of holiday travelers are expected to travel by car — more than 38 million people — according to AAA, which advises drivers who want to avoid the worst of the congestion to leave cities early on Thursday and Friday, and to stay off the roads between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Sunday and Monday.
“We haven't seen a drop in travel since the pandemic. Year after year, this number continues to increase,” AAA spokeswoman Aisha Diaz said. “We don't know when it's going to stop. There's no sign of that yet.”
It certainly doesn't slow you down at the airport. The number of people passing through security checkpoints increased by 3.2% this year. The TSA said it screened 2.85 million people last Friday and about the same number on Sunday, the two busiest days of the year so far.
The TSA expects to screen more than 18 million travelers and flight crew in the seven days starting Thursday, up 6.4 percent from last year. Friday is expected to be the busiest day for air travel, with nearly 3 million people passing through checkpoints. The TSA record of 2.91 million was set the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year.
“We're on track to break that record this summer,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said.
The agency, founded after the 9/11 attacks, has at times struggled with peak workloads. Pekosky told The Associated Press that the pay increases for front-line inspectors have reduced turnover from more than 20% to less than 10% and helped improve staffing levels.
Airlines say they have been adding to their workforce since running into staff shortages in the spring and summer of 2022 as travel began to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
With better weather, travelers may see fewer canceled flights than in recent summers: U.S. airlines have canceled 1.2% of flights so far this year, compared with 1.4% during the same period last year and 2.8% in 2022, according to FlightAware data. That performance was so poor it drew complaints and increased scrutiny from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
But even before the holiday weekend began, the storm caused widespread cancellations at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, American Airlines' largest hub. By late afternoon, the airline had canceled more than 200 flights, or 5% of its schedule.
Stranded travelers were not happy.
“Our flight got canceled right before we checked in, and then they took up really quickly, so there are no flights here until Friday. We might end up driving. Isn't that awful?” said Rosie Gutierrez of Allen, Texas, who was trying to get to Florida with her son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter.
American Airlines Chief Operating Officer David Seymour said the airline has ramped up staffing and technology in preparation for the seasonal rush.
“It's a long summer, but we're prepared for it. We have the right resources,” he said.
American Airlines has its most ambitious summer schedule yet, with 690,000 flights from May 17 to September 3.
United Airlines expects its Memorial Day weekend to be its biggest ever, carrying about 10% more passengers than last year, while Delta Air Lines expects passenger numbers to increase 5% this weekend, its biggest ever international summer schedule.
According to AAA, the top domestic and international travel destinations are familiar destinations. Includes Orlando, Las Vegas, London, Paris and Rome.
So what about worries about the economy?
It's important to note that people often say their financial situation is better than average: In a February Associated Press poll, 54% said their personal situation was good, but only 30% felt the same way about the national economy.
That may explain why they can afford to splurge on travel.
___
Rebecca Santana and Rick Gentilo in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
