HOUSTON — The Memorial Day weekend travel period is underway and it's expected to be a busy one.
AAA predicts this will be the busiest start-of-summer weekend in nearly 20 years, with 43.8 million people expected to travel at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and Monday. The Transportation Security Administration says up to 3 million might pass through airport checkpoints on Friday alone.
There's certainly no slowdown at airports. The number of people going through security checkpoints is up 3.2% this year. The TSA said it screened 2.85 million people last Friday and nearly as many on Sunday — the two busiest days of the year so far.
KHOU 11's Deevon Rahming spoke with United Airlines customer service supervisor Peggy Slay at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport about the demand they are seeing.
"Demand is extremely high. We're ready to welcome all the people that are traveling with us," Slay said. "We just introduced our summer flight schedule. We're operating approximately 490 flights a day out of Houston intercontinental."
Slay recommends travelers get to the airport early if they plan on flying.
TSA predicts it will screen more than 18 million travelers and airline crew members during the seven-day stretch that began Thursday, up 6.4% 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 is 2.91 million, set on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year.
“We’re going to break those records this summer,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said.
The annual expression of wanderlust is happening at a time when Americans tell pollsters they are worried about the economy and the direction of the country.
A slowdown, and in some cases a retreat, from the big price increases of the last two years may be helping.
Airfares are down 6% and hotel rates have dipped 0.4%, compared with a year ago, according to government figures released last week. Prices for renting a car or truck are down 10%. The nationwide price of gas is around $3.60 a gallon, about 6 cents higher than a year ago, according to AAA.
As in past years, most holiday travelers are expected to travel by car – more than 38 million of them, according to AAA. The organization advises motorists hoping to avoid the worst traffic to leave metropolitan areas early Thursday and Friday and to stay off the roads between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday and Monday.
“We haven’t seen any pullback in travel since the pandemic. Year after year, we have seen these numbers continue to grow,” AAA spokesperson Aixa Diaz said. “We don’t know when it’s going to stop. There’s no sign of it yet.”
According to AAA, the top domestic and international destinations are familiar ones. They include Orlando, Las Vegas, London, Paris and Rome.