- More than 20 million passengers expected to fly out of state over the vacation
- This marks an 11% increase on last year, which already exceeded 2019 levels
- But chaos could be on the cards with thousands of flight delays on Friday
A chaotic Labor Day weekend is on the cards for many as 95 million Americans are expected to be traveling over the vacation period – which looks set to be riddled with traffic delays.
More than 20 million passengers are expected to fly out of state from Saturday to Monday – an 11% increase over last year – according to travel booking app Hopper, following on from a boom in international travel in recent months.
Meanwhile, millions more Americans are taking to the roads for shorter getaways at nearby beaches, theme parks, and woodland retreats.
David Pekoske, from the Transport Security Administration, said passenger volumes this year are expected to be even greater than last year – which already exceeded 2019 levels.
But last year’s Labor Day weekend was marred by mass cancelations, with thousands of frustrated flyers waiting hours – or sometimes even days – for a new flight following major delays.
This year’s vacation could be similar, with 2,522 arrivals and departures from the United States delayed on Friday already, according to tracking website Flight Aware.
‘We anticipate this Labor Day holiday weekend will be busy, with passenger volumes nearly 11% higher than last year-volumes that already exceeded 2019 Labor Day holiday travel volumes,’ TSA’s Pekoske said in a statement.
This comes after a giant dust cloud in Arizona caused mass power outages and grounded flights on Thursday, particularly around Maricopa County, the state’s most populous area.
Meanwhile, further east, Hurricane Idalia wrecked havoc in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, upending travel plans for thousands.
According to flight-tracking website Flightaware.com, more than 1,500 flights were delayed and 60 were canceled on Friday as the storm slammed into the Big Bend region.
Despite this, nearly 400,000 passengers were scheduled to depart from airports in the direct path of Idalia on Thursday and Friday, according to Hopper.
Atlanta, GA, is expected to be the busiest airport, with 1, 541, 254 people due to depart over the Labor Day vacation.
Some 1, 024, 839 passengers will take off from Denver, CO, which will be the second-busiest airport over the long weekend.
Dallas Fort-Worth, TX, comes in third with 983, 089 people leaving the state over the Labor Day period, with Los Angeles, CA, fourth at 927,031 and Chicago, IL, fifth with 816, 943.
As vacationers prepare to fly out this weekend, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned passengers to ‘respect flight crews’ working over the Labor Day period.
‘If you’re onboard an airplane, do not get in the way of the flight crew,’ he told CNN Friday before boarding a flight at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.
‘We expect everybody to respect flight crews and their fellow passengers.’
‘No one should do anything that endangers the flight crew or fellow passengers on a plane, and doing so could lead to you being referred for criminal prosecution and facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines.’
Nationwide, international bookings for flights, hotels, rental cars, and cruises for the Labor Day weekend were up 44% from a year ago, according to travel group AAA, while domestic bookings rose 4% compared with last year.
The exodus is good news for hoteliers, who can expect to cash in on the bookings.
Travel operators with a larger international footprint have reported strong earnings, with companies ranging from Airbnb to Marriott forecasting strong future demand due to robust global travel and higher room rates.
‘US room rates were up 2.5% for the first 26 days in August and we expect similar rate increases year over year for the long weekend,’ said Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group.
AAA said Vancouver, Rome, London, Dublin, and Paris were the top five destinations for the long weekend.
Domestic cruise bookings also look strong, up 19% compared with a year earlier, AAA estimated.
Airfare for domestic getaways is averaging $226 per ticket, down 11% from last year and 20% lower from the Labor Day weekend in 2019, according to Hopper.