November 15, 2018

Are you sure you’re ready to travel this Thanksgiving?

The latest projection is out from Airlines for America, which says that a record 30.6 million passengers are expected to travel on U.S. airlines over the Thanksgiving holiday travel period between Nov.16 through Nov. 27. Compare this number to 2017’s 29 million passengers that traveled, and you’ve got about an extra 137,000 passengers per day.

What may not surprise you is that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is expected to be the busiest day to fly with an estimated 3.06 million passengers traveling on this day. If you’re looking to avoid the masses as much as possible, you should fly on Thanksgiving itself, because it’s expected to have the lightest amount of travelers in comparison to the days surrounding it.

So why is there such an increase this year for travelers over Thanksgiving? It’s a surprising buyer’s market to fly over the holidays this year with airline prices decreasing and airlines increasing their amount of seats. In fact, Airlines for America reports that airlines add 158,000 seats each day, which translates into 2.94 million seats that are available to passengers daily.

For those who think driving might be the best option, here’s another number to think about. According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), an estimated 54.3 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more away from home this Thanksgiving. That’s the highest amount of travelers in over two dozen years and about 2.5 million more people than in 2005.

So whether you’re traveling by plane or automobile, just remember to give yourself some extra time.

Happy Thanksgiving!