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(AP) — Just as there are good odds the turkey will taste dry, airports and highways are expected to be jam-packed during Thanksgiving week, a holiday period likely to end on another record day for air travel in the United States.
The people responsible for keeping security lines, boarding areas, and jetliners moving — from the U.S. transportation secretary and airline chiefs on down the line — swear they are prepared for the crowds.
Airline passengers might get lucky like they did last year when relatively few flights were canceled during the holiday week. A repeat will require the weather’s cooperation. And even if skies are blue, a shortage of air traffic controllers could create delays.
Thanksgiving, by the numbers
Auto club and insurance company AAA predicts that nearly 80 million Americans will venture at least 50 miles from home between Tuesday and next Monday. Most of them will travel by car.
Drivers should get a slight break on gas prices. The nationwide average price for gasoline was $3.06 a gallon on Sunday, down from $3.27 at this time last year.
The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 18.3 million people at U.S. airports during the same seven-day stretch. That would be 6% more than during the corresponding days last year but fit a pattern set throughout 2024.
The TSA predicts that 3 million people will pass through airport security checkpoints on Sunday; more than that could break the record of 3.01 million set on the Sunday after the July Fourth holiday. Tuesday and Wednesday are expected to be the next busiest air travel days of Thanksgiving week.
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TSA says it’s ready
“This will be the busiest Thanksgiving ever in terms of air travel,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said. “Fortunately, our staffing is also at the highest levels that they have ever been. We are ready.”
Pekoske said TSA will have enough screeners to keep general security lines under 30 minutes and lines for people who pay extra for PreCheck under 10 minutes.
FAA staffing shortage could create delays
However, an ongoing shortage of air traffic controllers could cause flight delays.
Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Mike Whitaker said last week that he expects his agency to use special measures to deal with shortages at some facilities. In the past, that has included airports in New York City and Florida.
“If we are short on staff, we will slow traffic as needed to keep the system safe,” Whitaker said.
The FAA has long struggled with a shortage of controllers that airline officials expect will last for years, despite the agency’s lofty hiring goals.
Timing of holiday shapes travel patterns
Thanksgiving Day takes place late this year, with the fourth Thursday of November falling on Nov. 28. That shortens the traditional shopping season and changes the rhythm of holiday travel.
With more time before the holiday, people tend to spread out their outbound travel over more days, but everyone returns at the same time, said Andrew Watterson, the chief operating officer of Southwest Airlines.
“A late Thanksgiving leads to a big crush at the end — the Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday after Thanksgiving are usually very busy with Thanksgiving this late,” Watterson said.
Airlines did a relatively good job of handling holiday crowds last year when the weather was mild in most of the country. Fewer than 400 U.S. flights were canceled during Thanksgiving week in 2023 — about one of every 450 flights. So far in 2024, airlines have canceled about 1.3% of all flights.
Combining work and leisure
The rise of remote work also has caused the Thanksgiving travel period to expand, AAA spokesperson Aixa Diaz said.
“The pandemic changed everything,” she said. “What we have seen is that post-pandemic, people are leaving at certain times, perhaps even leaving the weekend before Thanksgiving, working remotely from their destination a couple of days, and then enjoying time with their loved ones.”
Nightmares of Thanksgiving past have further shaped holiday traffic jams. Motorists who learned to avoid traveling the day before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving have created new bottlenecks on other days, according to Diaz.
“Because we warned for so long (that) Wednesday and Sunday are the worst days to travel, people were like, ‘OK, I’m going to leave on Tuesday and come back on Monday to avoid the rush,’” she said. “So now those two days are congested as well.”
Advice for travelers
Airport security officials are pleading with passengers to arrive early, not to put lithium-ion batteries in checked bags in case they overheat, and to keep guns out of carry-on bags. TSA has discovered more than 6,000 guns at checkpoints this year, and most of them were loaded.
Holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas bring out many infrequent travelers, and they often have questions about what they can bring on the plane.
TSA has a list on its website of items that are banned or restricted.
Drivers should know that Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons will be the worst times to travel by car, but it should be smooth sailing on freeways come Thanksgiving Day, according to transportation analytics company INRIX.
On the return home, the best travel times for motorists are before 1 p.m. on Sunday, and before 8 a.m. or after 7 p.m. on Monday, the company said.
In metropolitan areas like Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Washington, “traffic is expected to be more than double what it typically is on a normal day,” INRIX transportation analyst Bob Pishue said.
Service workers at Charlotte Douglas International Airport plan to go on strike during a busy week of Thanksgiving travel to protest what they say are unlivable wages.
Employees of ABM and Prospect Airport Services cast ballots Friday to authorize the work stoppage in North Carolina, which is set to begin Monday at 5 a.m.
Officials with Service Employees International Union announced the impending strike in a statement early Monday, saying the workers would demand “an end to poverty wages and respect on the job during the holiday travel season.”
ABM and Prospect Airport Services contract with American Airlines to provide services including cleaning airplane interiors, removing trash, and escorting passengers in wheelchairs.
Workers say they previously raised the alarm about their growing inability to afford basic necessities, including food and housing. They described living paycheck to paycheck, unable to cover expenses like car repairs while performing jobs that keep countless planes running on schedule.
“We’re on strike today because this is our last resort. We can’t keep living like this,” ABM cabin cleaner Priscilla Hoyle said in a statement. “We’re taking action because our families can’t survive.”
Several hundred workers were expected to walk off the job and continue the work stoppage throughout Monday.
Most of them earn between $12.50 and $19 an hour, which is well below the living wage for a single person with no children in the Charlotte area, union officials said.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport officials have said this holiday travel season is expected to be the busiest on record, with an estimated 1.02 million passengers departing the airport between last Thursday and the Monday after Thanksgiving.
In addition to walking off the job, striking workers plan to hold an 11 a.m. rally and a 1 p.m. “Strikesgiving” lunch “in place of the Thanksgiving meal that many of the workers won’t be able to afford later this week,” union officials said.
“Airport service workers make holiday travel possible by keeping airports safe, clean, and running,” the union said. “Despite their critical role in the profits that major corporations enjoy, many airport service workers must work two to three jobs to make ends meet.”
ABM said it would take steps to minimize disruptions from any demonstrations.
“At ABM, we appreciate the hard work our team members put in every day to support our clients and help keep spaces clean and people healthy,” the company said in a statement last week.
Prospect Airport Services said last week that the company recognizes the seriousness of the potential for a strike during the busy holiday travel season.
Another round of wintry weather could complicate travel leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday, according to forecasts across the U.S., while California and Washington state continue to recover from storm damage and power outages.
In California, where two people were found dead in floodwaters on Saturday, authorities braced for more rain while grappling with flooding and small landslides from a previous storm.
The National Weather Service office in Sacramento, California, issued a winter storm warning for the Sierra Nevada through Tuesday, with heavy snow expected at higher elevations and wind gusts potentially reaching 55 mph (88 kph). Total snowfall of roughly 4 feet (1.2 meters) was forecast, with the heaviest accumulations expected Monday and Tuesday.
The Midwest and Great Lakes regions will see rain and snow Monday and the East Coast will be the most impacted on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, forecasters said.
A low-pressure system is forecast to bring rain to the Southeast early Thursday before heading to the Northeast. Areas from Boston to New York could see rain and breezy conditions, with snowfall possible in parts of northern New Hampshire, northern Maine, and the Adirondacks. If the system tracks further inland, there could be less snow and more rain in the mountains, forecasters said.
“The system doesn’t look like a powerhouse right now,” Hayden Frank, a meteorologist with the weather service in Massachusetts, said Sunday. “Basically, this is going to bring rain to the I-95 corridor so travelers should prepare for wet weather. Unless the system trends a lot colder, it looks like rain.”
Frank said he isn’t seeing any major storm systems arriving for the weekend anywhere in the country so travelers heading home Sunday can expect good driving conditions. Temperatures, however, will get colder in the East while warming up out West.
More rain expected after deadly ‘bomb cyclone’ on West Coast
Two people died in the Pacific Northwest after a rapidly intensifying “ bomb cyclone ” hit the West Coast last Tuesday, bringing fierce winds that toppled trees and power lines and damaged homes and cars. Hundreds of thousands lost electricity in Washington state before powerful gusts and record rains moved into Northern California. Fewer than 25,000 people in the Seattle area were still without power Sunday evening.
Two bodies were found Saturday in Sonoma County wine country, north of San Francisco, authorities said. Someone walking on a trail near Santa Rosa found the body of a man in a swollen creek, according to the sheriff’s department. Hours later, rescue crews recovered a body inside a vehicle bobbing in floodwaters in nearby Guerneville, Deputy Rob Dillion said. Investigators are trying to determine if the deaths were storm-related.
Santa Rosa saw its wettest three-day period on record with about 12.5 inches (32 centimeters) of rain by Friday evening, the National Weather Service in the San Francisco Bay Area reported. Vineyards in nearby Windsor were flooded.
Forecasters said the risk of flooding and mudslides remained as the region gets more rain starting Sunday. But the latest storm won’t be as intense as last week’s atmospheric river, a long plume of moisture that forms over an ocean and flows over land.
“However, there’s still threats, smaller threats, and not as significant in terms of magnitude, that are still going to exist across the West Coast for the next two or three days,” weather service forecaster Rich Otto said.
As the rain moves east throughout the week, Otto said, there’s a potential for heavy snowfall at higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada, as well as portions of Utah and Colorado.
California’s Mammoth Mountain, which received 2 feet (.6 meters) of fresh snow in the recent storm, could get another 4 feet (1.2 meters) before the newest system clears out Wednesday, the resort said.
Northeast gets needed precipitation
Into Thanksgiving, parts of the Midwest and East Coast can expect to see heavy rain, and there’s potential for snow in Northeastern states.
A storm last week brought rain to New York and New Jersey, where wildfires have raged in recent weeks, and heavy snow to northeastern Pennsylvania. The precipitation was expected to help ease drought conditions after an exceptionally dry fall.
“It’s not going to be a drought buster, but it’s definitely going to help,” said Bryan Greenblatt, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Binghamton, New York.
Heavy snow fell in northeastern Pennsylvania, including the Pocono Mountains. Higher elevations were reported up to 17 inches (43 centimeters), with lesser accumulations in valley cities including Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Around 35,000 customers in 10 counties were still without power, down from 80,000 a day ago.
In the Catskills region of New York, nearly 10,000 people remained without power Sunday morning, two days after a storm dumped heavy snow on parts of the region.
Precipitation in West Virginia helped put a dent in the state’s worst drought in at least two decades and boosted ski resorts as they prepare to open in the weeks ahead.