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 this weekend will be the busiest summer holiday in 20 years, with 43.8 million people expected to travel at least 50 miles from their homes between Thursday and Monday. The Transportation Security Administration says up to 3 million people could pass through airport checkpoints on Friday alone.
And this is just a taste of what's to come: U.S. airlines expect to carry a record number of passengers this summer. Industry groups predict that 271 million travelers will fly between June 1 and August 31, which, you guessed it, would break the previous record of 255 million set last summer.
The annual display of travel fervor comes at a time when polls show Americans are worried about the economy and the country's direction.
A slowdown, and possibly a setback, from the massive price increases of the past two years may be helping.
Airfares are down 6% and hotel prices are down 0.4% compared to a year ago, according to government figures released last week. Rates for rental cars and trucks are down 10%. The national price of gasoline is about $3.60 per gallon, about 6 cents higher than a year ago, according to AAA.
Johannes Thomas, CEO of hotel and travel search company trivago, said more customers are feeling the pinch as prices have plateaued, although they are still much higher than before the pandemic. He said that there might be. He said they are booking further in advance, staying closer to home, taking shorter trips and compromising on accommodations, staying in three-star hotels instead of five-star hotels.
Many travelers have their own cost-saving strategies, such as combining work and pleasure on the same trip.
“I've mostly been able to adapt by traveling at odd hours — flying late at night, arriving early in the morning, staying longer than planned, working remotely,” said Lauren Hartle, a clean-energy venture investor who lives in Boston.
Hartle, who flew to Dallas from Boston on Wednesday for a work meeting, plans to attend a summer family reunion in North Carolina but is otherwise considering traveling closer to home, and perhaps by train instead of flying.
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.
Shast is planning a beach vacation in Florida in July, and while high costs could put other trips off, “I'm the kind of person who, if I really want to go somewhere, I'll figure out how to make it happen if I have time off work.”
As usual, the majority of holiday travelers are expected to travel by car, more than 38 million people, according to AAA. The association advises motorists who want to avoid the worst of the traffic jams to leave cities early on Thursdays and Fridays and to avoid using the roads between 3pm and 7pm on Sundays and Mondays.
“We haven't seen a dip in travel since the pandemic. Year after year, the numbers just keep growing,” AAA spokesperson Aisha Diaz said. “We don't know when it's going to stop. We're not seeing any signs of that yet.”
There is certainly no traffic jam at the airport. This year, the number of people passing through security checkpoints has increased by 3.2%. The TSA said it screened 2.85 million people last Friday and about the same number on Sunday. These two days were the busiest so far this year.
The TSA expects to screen more than 18 million travelers and airline crew members during the seven-day period starting Thursday, an increase of 6.4% from last year. Friday is expected to be the busiest day for air travel, with around 3 million people passing through checkpoints. The TSA record is 2.91 million, set on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year.
“We're on track to break that record this summer,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said.
The agency, created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, sometimes struggled with peak loads. Pekosuke told The Associated Press that pay raises for front-line inspectors reduced attrition from more than 20% to less than 10%, contributing to improved staffing.
Airlines also said they have boosted staffing since facing staffing shortages in the spring and summer of 2022 as travel demand from the COVID-19 pandemic began to recover.
If the weather cooperates, travelers may see fewer canceled flights than in recent summers. U.S. airlines have canceled 1.2% of their flights so far this year, compared to 1.4% at this time last year and 2.8% in 2022, according to FlightAware data. It performed so poorly that it sparked complaints and increased scrutiny from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
But before the holiday began, the storm caused widespread cancellations at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, American Airlines' largest hub, with the airline canceling more than 200 flights, or 5% of its total, by late afternoon.
Stranded travelers were not happy.
“Our flight got canceled right before we could check in and then they filled up so quickly that there are no flights coming 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 is ramping up its workforce and technology in preparation for the busy seasonal period.
“It's a long summer, but we're preparing for it. We have the right resources,” he said.
American Airlines is announcing its most ambitious summer schedule yet, with 690,000 flights between May 17 and September 3.
United Airlines expects Memorial Day weekend to be its highest number ever, with about 10% more passengers than last year. Delta expects passenger numbers to increase 5% this weekend, the busiest summer schedule ever for international flights.
According to AAA, the top domestic and international travel destinations are familiar destinations. Includes Orlando, Las Vegas, London, Paris and Rome.
So what about concerns about the economy?
It is important to note that people often say that 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 country's economy.
That may explain why they can afford to spend extravagantly on travel.
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Rebecca Santana and Rick Gentillo in Washington contributed to this report.
