When it comes to summer travel this year, one word keeps coming up: busy.
“This will be the busiest summer travel season we have on record,” David Pekoske, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, said at a news conference last week.
The agency expects to screen more than 18 million people at airports between Thursday and May 29; Pekoske said he anticipates days later this summer on which security checkpoints will see a record 3.1 million or 3.2 million people.
“We haven’t seen Memorial Day weekend travel numbers like these in almost 20 years,” Paula Twidale, senior vice president of AAA Travel, said in a news release forecasting nearly 44 million travelers between Thursday and Monday. “We’re projecting an additional one million travelers this holiday weekend compared to 2019, which not only means we’re exceeding pre-pandemic levels but also signals a very busy summer travel season ahead.”
Travel advisers say the numbers are bearing out the enthusiasm they’ve seen from clients. John Lovell, president of Travel Leaders Group, said families have been planning for this summer since last year — and already are booking trips for spring break and the summer of 2025. He said people realized early in the pandemic how much travel brought to their lives and have since made it a priority.
“What we’re hearing every single day is that people are just so joyful to get out into the world again,” said Mel Burton, coordinator at CruCon Cruise Outlet.
For the millions of people traveling over the upcoming weekend or months, there are some key tips to remember.
Airfare is giving us a break
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It should cost less to fly over the holiday weekend (or throughout the summer) this year compared with last — and even compared with pre-covid times.
According to flight-booking app Hopper, the cost of domestic flights for Memorial Day weekend was averaging $260 as of last week, a decrease of 9.5 percent year over year.
“It’s a trend that’s going to continue through the summer,” said Hayley Berg, Hopper’s lead economist.
For June, July and August, domestic airfare is averaging $305 a ticket, a 6 percent drop, Hopper said in its summer outlook. Even flights to Europe are trending cheaper after last summer’s sticker shock. Berg said the average airfare for Europe flights of $950 for June through August was down 8 percent.
Still, that’s about 15 percent higher than the cost of flights in 2019.