Rain and fog delayed holiday travelers coming home yesterday but the much-predicted traffic hassles during the long Thanksgiving weekend did not materialize. Traffic was generally smooth with few bumps.
“Despite bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highways, and shoulder-to-shoulder crowds in airports and bus terminals,” the hectic holiday travel weekend steered clear of serious problems, according to ABC World News.
“I think preparation was there,” said Troy Green, spokesperson for the AAA auto club. “So, therefore, people knew what to expect when going into the airports or the highways.”
The Sunday after Thanksgiving is typically the busiest travel day of the year, with more than 29,000 planes flying over the U.S. throughout the day. But the Federal Aviation Administration says there were few delays.
Why did everything go so right?
Analysts say the weather helped.
One problem area was long bus lines, which some blamed on gas prices.
A problem area Monday was business as usual at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, which had many cancelled and delayed flights.
Arrivals there were also delayed up to three hours, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Arrival delays at Philadelphia International Airport were averaging just over an hour, said an airport spokeswoman
AAA said its surveys indicated a record 38.7 million US residents would travel 50 miles or more for the holiday period of Wednesday through last Sunday, up about 1.5% from last year. About 4.7 million were expected to fly, and about 31.2 million travelers were likely to drive in spite of rising gas prices.
Report by David Wilkening
