Travel Troubles Are Nowhere To be Found

The Sunday after Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days of the year. But as CBS News correspondent Joie Chen reports, if you were expecting the stories you hear every year about the huge pile-ups at the airport, the people tripping over each other at the train station or the miles-long traffic jams on the interstate — you won't hear them.

With 38 million Americans taking to the highway, up 1 million from last Thanksgiving weekend; 25 million flying, up 3 percent; and even Amtrak on overload, with 27 extra trains on the Northeast Corridor alone — and almost all of them sold out — all the ingredients for travel problems were there. And yet … you had to look hard to find travel trouble.

For much of the afternoon, the worst problems were at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport, a tiny commuter facility outside New York City.

The biggest reason: The weather — or lack of it. From coast to coast, there was no rain or snow. Sunny skies were everywhere.

The Sanders family of Miami came to the airport 4½ hours early, braced for the worst, and never found it.

There were lines — at airport security — for the first big holiday since Ziploc bags contained travel essentials beyond leftover turkey. And air travelers are finding themselves stuffed — into coach cabins. The airline industry expects flights will be more than 90 percent full today and Monday as Americans head home.