WASHINGTON — The long Thanksgiving holiday weekend is over, however many people are still making their way back home, which means more busy airports and more heavy traffic on the roads.
Monday morning at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was pretty smooth with typical traffic leading up to the airport during the peak time between 5 and 6 a.m. This was a big difference compared to Sunday evening, when heavy traffic backed up for almost a mile and took nearly two hours to get through.
Luckily no flights were delayed or canceled in the morning, which was good news for the Bennett family, who said their connecting flight to Philadelphia was canceled late Sunday night.
“So we got stuck here and we had to stay overnight," said Christine Bennett. "We love D.C. We’ve lived here for 10 years, but I didn’t really want to stay here last night," said David Bennett.
The TSA line got long as people arrived to catch the early morning flights, wrapping around and out almost to the escalators at one point.
Linda Bradshaw and Gary Howdyshell, who were on their way out of town for vacation, did not let the long TSA line stress them out.
“This is about what it was last time without the holiday traffic, so far so good," Bradshaw said. “No reason to rush as long as we can get through this line quick," Howdyshell said.
This is the first year AAA’s prediction included the Monday after Thanksgiving as part of the busy travel time. AAA said this Thanksgiving, air travel set a new record with 5.84 million people flying domestically. That is a two percent increase from last year and nearly an 11 percent increase over 2019, so travel is now exceeding pre-pandemic levels.
More than 71 million people traveled by car this holiday, which means if you are heading to the airport on Monday, give yourself plenty of time to get here.
AAA said the best time to be on the road Monday is before 8 a.m. or after 7 p.m.