The summer travel season has officially begun.
About 6 million people are expected to travel to Texas over the extended Fourth of July holiday, leading to busy airports and roads over the next week.
Traffic congestion was seen at both Dallas Love Field and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Friday morning.
Experts say this holiday week will see record travel numbers.
“According to the TSA, a single-day record for air travel has already been broken. The record was broken last Sunday when 2.9 million people went through TSA, just shy of 3 million,” said Katie Nastro, president of Going.com. “We could hit 3 million in a single day next week, which would set a new single-day record for travel.”
Travel volume in Texas is expected to be up 5% from last year, according to AAA.
This year's holiday travel season could be longer, with AAA extending its travel forecast from five to nine days for the first time.
About 5 million Texans are expected to drive and about 500,000 people are expected to travel by plane.
“Typically, we view the Fourth of July as a domestic travel season, with people traveling to places like South Florida and enjoying the beach,” Nastro says. “Others are using the day of the calendar week to plan international travel, with 54% of travel respondents saying they are considering traveling internationally this year or will be traveling internationally more frequently than usual.”
