Highways and airports are likely to be congested over the next few days as Americans head off for Memorial Day weekend holidays and then return home.
AAA expects 43.8 million people to travel at least 50 miles from home between Thursday, May 23 and Monday, May 27, making the weekend the busiest summer holiday in 20 years. The Transportation Security Administration predicts that up to 3 million people could go through airport checkpoints on May 24.
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 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 big price gains of the past two years may be helping.
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 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 from Boston to Dallas on May 22 for a work meeting, plans to attend a summer family reunion in North Carolina, but otherwise is considering traveling closer to home, preferably by train rather than plane.
Katie Shust, a babysitter and piano teacher in Maine, said her round-trip flight from Boston to Dallas cost $386 — “not that expensive,” she said, but more than the $200 to $300 she previously paid to visit family in Texas.
Shast is planning a beach vacation in Florida in July, and while high costs of living 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 travel is expected to be by car, with more than 38 million people travelling, according to AAA, which advises drivers who want to avoid the worst of the congestion to leave cities early on Thursday, May 23 and Friday, May 24, and to stay off the roads between 3pm and 7pm on Sunday, May 25 and Monday, May 27.
“We haven't seen a decline in travel since the pandemic. Every year, the number of travelers continues to grow,” AAA spokesperson Aisha Diaz said. “We don't know when it's going to stop. We haven't seen any signs of that yet.”
Airports certainly aren't gridlocked. The number of people passing through security is up 3.2% this year. The TSA says it screened 2.85 million people on its two busiest days so far this year: May 17, and roughly the same number on May 19.
The TSA expects to screen more than 18 million travelers and airline crew during the seven-day period starting May 23, a 6.4% increase from last year. May 24 is expected to be the busiest day for air travel, with nearly 3 million people passing through checkpoints. The TSA's record was 2.91 million, set the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year.
“We intend to break these records this summer,” TSA Administrator David Pekoski said.
The agency, established after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has struggled with peak workloads at times, and Pekoske said pay increases for front-line inspectors have helped improve staffing, reducing turnover from more than 20 percent to less than 10 percent.
Airlines say they have been adding staff since they ran into staffing shortages in the spring and summer of 2022 as travel began to recover from the COVID-19 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 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 frustrated, and American Airlines Chief Operating Officer David Seymour said the airline had beefed up staffing and technology to prepare for the seasonal rush.
“It's a long summer, but we're prepared and we have the right resources,” he said.
American Airlines has announced its most ambitious summer schedule ever, operating 690,000 flights between May 17 and 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, popular domestic and international destinations include well-known cities such as Orlando, Las Vegas, London, Paris and Rome.
So what about worries about the economy? It's important to note that people often say that their financial situation is better than average.
In a February survey, 54% said their personal situation was good, but only 30% said they felt the same about the country's economy, which may explain why they can afford to spend money on travel.
