Holiday travel: How the skies and roads are looking in Tucson

AAA predicts that more than 119 million people will travel between Christmas and New Year’s Day, which would be a record-breaking number of travelers.

The Tucson International Airport (TIA) was much calmer Tuesday evening than in the morning, even after many flights were delayed from different airlines.

Leslie Ramirez, traveling with her dog Mr. Dinkles, says she usually doesn’t have issues with her flights.

She booked a one-way flight to Dallas to see her family, but after a three-and-a-half-hour delay, she won’t arrive until Christmas day.

“I guess the plane’s been here all day but they’ve had thunderstorms so we’ve been waiting to leave and mr. Dinkles is patiently waiting to go along with me and yeah, hopefully we’ll get there this evening around midnight.”

Many American Airlines flights were delayed Christmas Eve.
We reached out to the airline asking why and they sent a statement which read:

“A vendor technology issue briefly affected flights this morning. That issue has been resolved and flights have resumed. We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning. It’s all hands on deck as our team is working diligently to get customers where they need to go as quickly as possible.”

From the skies to the roads, people are seeing less pain at the pump, especially in Arizona.

The current state average for regular gas is about $3.08, and in Tucson, it is $2.97.

Rick Weitekamp drove all the way from Springfield, Illinois to be with his family for the holidays and he says the gas prices in Tucson aren’t much different from home.

“We’re about the same prices,” says Weitekamp.

On the other hand, Sascha Woermann is visiting from Germany and traveling in a camper for 16 days with his wife and daughter. He says Arizona’s prices are nothing compared to where he’s from.

“The gas prices are wonderful here. I mean this one sucks a lot of gas but it’s a breeze. It’s easy. It’s like maybe 20% of Germany,” Woermann said.

Woermann and his family were on their way to the Grand Canyon and say they chose Arizona to visit for good reasons.

“I like the weather. We both like sand and the desert. We both like the nature, the remoteness, the wideness of the country. It’s the perfect place. Arizona is wonderful,” Woermann continued.

According to AAA, 107 million people are traveling by car this holiday season.

Today’s national average for a gallon of gas is $3.04, two cents less than a month ago and four cents less than a year ago.