It’s starting to look like a busy holiday travel season, but it could go relatively smoothly if the weather cooperates.
Travel during Christmas and New Year’s tends to be spread out over several days, so peak periods in the U.S. will likely be lower than during the Thanksgiving holiday. That makes airlines and federal officials optimistic.
But Southwest Airlines’ defeat over Christmas last year should protect against overconfidence. Just this week, the Department of Transportation announced a settlement under which… Southwest will pay $140 million Because of this collapse, more than two million passengers were stranded.
So far this year, airlines have canceled 1.2% of U.S. flights, down about half from 2.1% during the same period last year. Cancellations were well under 1% during Thanksgiving, according to FlightAware.
“I don’t want to jinx it, but so far 2023 has had the lowest cancellation rate in the last five years,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Tuesday. But he added that the winter weather “will definitely pose a challenge in the next few weeks.”
Your travel ticketThe last two weeks of the year are peak travel time with millions of people flying, riding and driving to celebrate the season. What to know about travel mobility:
Cancelled flights soared last year, as airlines struggled with staff shortages when travel rebounded from the pandemic more quickly than expected. Since then, US airlines have hired thousands of pilots, flight attendants and other workers, and the cancellation rate has declined.
AP correspondent Donna Warder reports.
The weather was good so far for most American travelers on Thursday, a day before the expected peak on Friday.
“Honestly it was great. I flew standby, which is a hard thing to do during a holiday week, and I did it on the second try. So I feel really lucky. I’m really lucky,” said Maggie Terrell, after flying from New York City to Chicago O’Hare International Airport for Christmas. With family in southern Illinois: “I feel like Santa is real, he’s good, he’s there.”
In Europe, some travelers were not so lucky.
Strong winds from A A storm named Bea Flights, trains and road travel have been disrupted in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and the northern regions of the UK
Nearly a third of incoming and outgoing flights were canceled at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Thursday, and hundreds of flights were delayed, according to FlightAware. Copenhagen Airport in Denmark warned that weather conditions pose a “risk of delays and cancellations,” especially on Thursday evening. British Sky News reported that British Airways suspended 24 flights.
Adding to the frustration, workers in the undersea tunnel between Britain and France staged a surprise strike for several hours on Thursday that ended when Eurotunnel reached an agreement with union representatives.
Eurostar, which runs passenger train services from London to mainland Europe, said services would not resume until Friday. The company said it will operate six additional trains between Paris and London until the end of the week. Eurotunnel Le Shuttle, which runs vehicle-carrying trains on the same link under the English Channel, began resuming services on Thursday evening.
Ross Hines, 31, told the Press Association news agency that he was traveling to visit family members in Manchester when his train was cancelled.
“I was on the train, headphones on, podcast turned on, ready to go. Suddenly everything was canceled and we were kicked out,” Hines said.
After a struggle with Cancellations and other disruptions in the past yearMike Arnott, spokesman for aviation analytics firm Cirium, said European travel has been smoother this year, and more people are expected to travel over Christmas and New Year. However, about 3% of flights within Europe have been canceled so far in December, and nearly 30% have been delayed, according to Cirium.
Globally, air travel has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, but is expected to rise during the holidays compared to last year. Airlines sold 31% more tickets to international arrivals to global destinations between December 12 and 2019. 21 and December 31 compared to the same period last year, according to travel data firm ForwardKeys.
The US Federal Aviation Administration says it is working to create more air traffic routes, especially along the East Coast, to help keep planes moving during the holidays.
Over the past year, airlines have blamed many of their delays on a shortage of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic controllers, which has slowed traffic. The agency says it has hired and now has 10,700 certified controllers.
AAA expects 115 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home between Saturday and New Year’s Day. This represents a 2% increase on the Automobile Club’s forecast last year, although it will be below the record set in 2019.
Most of these people will be driving, and will save a little on gasoline, compared to last Christmas. The national average on Wednesday was $3.08 a gallon, down 23 cents from last month and down 6 cents from this time last year, according to AAA.
The busiest days on the route will be Saturday and Thursday next, December. 28, according to transportation data provider INRIX.
The Transportation Security Administration expects the busiest days for air travel to be Thursday, Friday and New Year’s Day. TSA expects to screen more than 2.5 million travelers on each of those days — that’s still far short of the record 2.9 million that agents screened on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
Aviation in the United States has already surpassed pre-pandemic levels. The TSA screened travelers 12.3% more than it did by this time last year and 1.4% more than it did in 2019. December was about 6% higher than the same month last year.
Whether flying or driving, travelers should monitor the weather forecast.
Pacific storm Parts of Southern California were bombed On Thursday with heavy rain and flooding in the streets. AccuWeather meteorologists say rainstorms could hit the Pacific Northwest and Southern Plains states including Texas later this week, but things are looking brighter for population centers — and major airports — in the Northeast.
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AP reporters Alexandra Olson in New York, Kelvin Chan in London, and Melissa Perez Winder in Chicago contributed to this report.
