The best and worst times to travel by road for Memorial Day weekend & record-breaking numbers expected at airports

If you’re planning to travel for Memorial Day weekend, now is a good time to get your trip underway, especially if you’re driving.

Highways and airports are likely to be jammed the next few days as AAA predicts this will be the busiest start-of-summer weekend in nearly 20 years, with 43.8 million people expected to travel at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and Monday.

As in past years, most holiday travelers are expected to travel by car — more than 38 million of them, according to AAA.

“We haven’t seen any pullback in travel since the pandemic. Year after year, we have seen these numbers continue to grow,” AAA spokesperson Aixa Diaz said. “We don’t know when it’s going to stop. There’s no sign of it yet.”

Before 11 a.m. Thursday or after 7 p.m. Thursday are the best times to be on the road as far as traffic, AAA says. And the organization advises motorists hoping to avoid the worst traffic to stay off the roads between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday and Monday. If you’re hitting the road Thursday or Friday, the worst times for drivers will be between 12 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Be sure you have a plan before you leave, including filling your tank.

“Have everything done ahead of time, so that means fill your tank the night before. Don’t wait until that morning of,” said AAA spokesperson Aixa Diaz. “Pack an emergency kit. Pack up the car the night before if possible. Try to avoid running those last-minute errands.”

Officials also emphasized that those enjoying adult beverages during their festivities should not drink and drive.

“If you feel different and you don’t think you should be driving, you shouldn’t be driving,” said Lindsay Tomiday, coordinator for Monroe County’s STOP-DWI.

Taking flight?

There’s certainly no slowdown at airports. The number of people going through security checkpoints is up 3.2% this year. The Transportation Security Administration said it screened 2.85 million people last Friday and nearly as many on Sunday — the two busiest days of the year so far.

TSA says up to 3 million might pass through airport checkpoints on Friday alone. The TSA record is 2.91 million, set on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year.

“We’re going to break those records this summer,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said.

TSA predicts it will screen more than 18 million travelers and airline crew members during the seven-day stretch that begins Thursday, up 6.4% from last year.

And that is just a sample of what is to come. U.S. airlines expect to carry a record number of passengers this summer. Their trade group estimates that 271 million travelers will fly between June 1 and August 31, breaking the record of 255 million set – you guessed it – last summer.

The TSA, which was created after the 9/11 terror attacks, has struggled at times with peak loads. Pekoske told The Associated Press that pay raises for front-line screeners have helped improve staffing by reducing attrition from more than 20% to less than 10%.

Airlines say they also have staffed up since being caught short when travel began to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring and summer of 2022.

Airfares are down 6% and hotel rates have dipped 0.4%, compared with a year ago, according to government figures released last week. Prices for renting a car or truck are down 10%. The nationwide price of gas is around $3.60 a gallon, about 6 cents higher than a year ago, according to AAA.

With any luck from the weather, travelers could see fewer canceled flights than in recent summers. So far this year, U.S. airlines have canceled 1.2% of their flights, according to FlightAware data, compared with 1.4% at this point last year and 2.8% in 2022 — a performance so poor it triggered complaints and increased scrutiny from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

According to AAA, the top domestic and international destinations are familiar ones. They include Orlando, Las Vegas, London, Paris and Rome.

So what about nervousness over the economy?

Johannes Thomas, CEO of the hotel and travel search company Trivago, said he thinks more customers are feeling the pinch of prices that have plateaued but at much higher levels than before the pandemic. He said they are booking farther in advance, staying closer to home, taking shorter trips, and compromising on accommodations — staying in three-star hotels instead of five-star ones.

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Rebecca Santana and Rick Gentilo in Washington contributed to this report.