BURSTThere’s no place like home for the holidays, and a record number of people are expected to travel this year.
The auto club AAA expects 119.3 million people to travel 50 miles or more between Dec. 21 and Jan. 1, around 3 million more than last year.
If their prediction comes to pass, 2024 holiday travel would surpass the previous record set in 2019 by 64,000 travelers.
“This year, with Christmas Day falling on a Wednesday, we’re anticipating record-breaking travel numbers the weekend before and the weekend after the holiday,” AAA Travel Vice President Stacey Barber said.
AAA expects air travel to set a new record this holiday season of nearly 7.9 million people, up from 7.5 million last year.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is also anticipating heavy traffic.
TSA said this week that it expects to screen nearly 40 million people between Dec. 19 and Jan. 2, a 6.2 percent increase from 2023. Dec. 20, 27 and 30 are expected to be the busiest days.
If the government were to shut down on Saturday, it would likely not immediately impact flights and airport operations. But the longer the potential shutdown stretches, the worse the situation could get.
Long wait times, delays and cancellations could pile up if large numbers of TSA employees and air traffic controllers, who would continue to work without pay until the government is funded, call in sick as they did during the last shutdown in 2019.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Friday morning that Republicans had reached a plan C to avert a shutdown after plan B failed to pass Thursday evening.
Nearly 90 percent of travelers will drive to their destination, a shutdown-proof method of transportation. AAA expects 107 million people to travel by car, just shy of the 2019 record of 108 million people.