Transportation officials, travelers prepare for hectic holiday week

BALTIMORE - Tens of millions of people across the country will hit the roads and take to the skies this week for the Thanksgiving holiday.

However, most of them are not expected to leave until Tuesday or Wednesday.

According to AAA, 55 million Americans will travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, which is up two percent from last year. A small portion of those travelers will be going by airplane.

"Nearly 4.7 million Americans will be flying to their holiday destinations," said Ragina Ali, from AAA. "That's an increase of more than 6 1/2 percent compared to last year."

Ali says more and more people are getting a head start on their travel by leaving earlier. Still, the busiest travel day remains to be the day before Thanksgiving.

At BWI on Sunday, WJZ ran into a few travelers getting a head start on the Thanksgiving rush.

"We're actually going to head up to New York City for the week, spend some time up there," traveler Michael Benally said.

Benally said he is happy to be avoiding the traffic.

"I didn't want to wait until Thanksgiving Day," he said. "Obviously, it's going to be a nightmare in here."

AAA expects other means of travel to be more popular this year.

"People taking trains, people taking buses, people taking cruises that's been our slowest mode to recover from the COVID pandemic," Ali said. "But we're projecting that more than 1.5 million Americans will be traveling via other modes."

Meanwhile, many travelers are looking forward to staying put.

"I am extremely happy I will not be traveling this year," said Nigeria House, from Baltimore. "I will be in Baltimore County and that's where I will be staying throughout the holiday."

House added that she hopes traffic will not delay people from getting to where they need to go.

"I hope all of the airports are prepared for the onslaught of travelers that are coming," House said. "Hopefully nothing crazy, that everybody just has a nice speedy quick arrival."

AAA says it will put out an updated travel report Monday, which include numbers specifically for how many Marylanders will be traveling over the holiday.