AAA: Memorial Day travel has ‘impressive’ rebound from pandemic dip

(NewsNation) — The unofficial start of summer is upon us, with millions of Americans getting a head start on traveling for Memorial Day weekend.

The Transportation Security Administration expects Friday to be the busiest travel day of the long weekend, screening nearly 3 million people alone.

AAA predicts nearly 44 million people will travel more than 50 miles from their homes for the holiday, 3.5 million of them flying. That’s an increase of nearly 5% compared to last year.

That’s the busiest it’s been in close to 20 years. While some are taking to the skies, 30 million of those travelers are driving. AAA says people often prefer the convenience and flexibility being on the road offers.

“I think what’s more impressive has just been the rebound — what we’ve seen and how quickly we have gotten back to not only pre-pandemic levels, but near-record levels when it comes to travel,” Aixa Diaz, a spokesperson for AAA, said.

Summer travel at record levels

According to the Associated Press, U.S. airlines are already estimating record-breaking levels of travel this summer. Around 271 million travelers are expected to fly between June 1 and Aug. 31, beating last summer’s 255 million.

Cheaper airfares, down 6%, and hotel rates, which decreased by 0.4% since last year, per government data, could be helping with this. Other factors include cheaper prices for renting vehicles, with prices down by 10%, as well as gas prices that are about 6 cents lower than this time in 2023.

Plan to wait longer in TSA lines

Ahead of the busy weekend, TSA encourages travelers to know the agency’s rules for carry-on bags to help speed up the security process.

“The lines are going to be longer; you need to budget extra time to get through security. But it’ll really speed things up if you know what you’re allowed to bring through security and what you’re not. That’ll keep things running smoothly for you, and for everybody behind you in line,” said Emily McGee, media relations specialist for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

Although previous years have been plagued by travel woes, mostly because of flight delays and cancellations, airlines said they’ve been able to hire more staff to rectify this situation. As of May 2024, U.S. airlines have canceled 1.2% of their flights, according to FlightAware, which is a better rate than the 1.4% terminated last year and the 2.8% in 2022.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.