AAA Expects 2.4 Million Floridians Will Hit Road For July 4th Holiday Weekend
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Whether you're driving Florida highways or flying off for some fun, you're going to have plenty of company this Fourth of July weekend.
"This year for Independence Day we're anticipating the second-most traveled holiday weekend on record," said Mark Jenkins from AAA Florida.
He told CBS4 when you break that down, about 2.4 million people will hit the road in Florida. That's a record breaker despite gas prices that are hovering close to $3 a gallon.
"It's been a very long year and a half and a lot of folks have been at home dreaming of traveling and now they finally have that opportunity to do it," Jenkins said.
If you're traveling by air, the numbers are way up too from last year, however, not as high as 2019. But there are other issues at play, including flight cancellations and delays.
"My auntie, she was actually coming down. She was told the agent wasn't working, then something was going on and she sat on the plane for two hours, had to get back off the plane, get back on the plane. She didn't get back until the next day," said traveler Arianna Love.
Many of those cancellations are coming from American Airlines, which has a large hub in Miami. The airline told CBS4 bad weather and delayed crews has impacted the system. Travelers want a heads up if they're not getting off the ground.
"If they let us know ahead of time and help us like, reschedule or something, I feel like that would be easier," said passenger Nayeli Luna.
And that's the plan. American is proactively canceling 50 to 80 flights a day in the first half of July, but they're letting flyers know in advance.
"A lot of the pull downs they've done in July are focused on their Dallas/Fort Worth home base," said Brett Snyder with CrankyFlyer.com
He told CBS4 in the big picture it's a relatively small number of flights system wide, and not many in South Florida.
"It's still ultimately not impacting the vast majority of travelers," he said. "People will see the news, they certainly can run into some of these problems but most people still aren't impacted by it."
At MIA, four flights were canceled Monday, none Tuesday and one cancellation is planned for Wednesday.
