Here’s what to expect at airports for Thanksgiving travel

The fallout from a week of sharp flight reductions natiwonwide has eased considerably, just in time for what is expected to be record air travel for Southern Californians flying for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.

While the vast majority of travelers will be driving to their destinations, airports and planes will still be crowded given the nearly 3% uptick in air travel that the Auto Club of Southern California is forecasting for next week.

The holiday forecast, released on Monday, comes on the same day that flight reductions ordered by the Transportation Department and Federal Aviation Administration officially ended.

The phased cuts at the nation’s 40 busiest airports — including San Diego’s — went into effect Nov. 7 as a way to address safety concerns in light of staffing shortages in connection with the federal government shutdown, which ended last week. In San Diego, dozens of flights were canceled daily, with mandated cutbacks expected to grow as high as 10%. But those were cut to 3% over the weekend as air traffic controller staffing improved.

According to the Auto Club, some 708,000 Southern Californians are expected to head to the airport for their Thanksgiving holiday — a nearly 3% increase over 2024 and 12.5% more than in 2019, before the start of the pandemic in 2020. The travel forecast covers the period between Nov. 25 (Tuesday) and Dec. 1 (Monday).

“The airlines began operating at near normal schedules over the weekend in spite of the continued flight restrictions,” said airline industry analyst Henry Harteveldt. “The airlines ignored those caps and started returning schedules to normal. That means they should be ready for the Thanksgiving holiday. The airlines have told me they’re doing everything they can to be ready by this Friday, so that’s really good news for travelers.”

That proved to be true over the weekend in San Diego where flight cancellations fell sharply to just 14 on Friday and only 1 on Sunday, according to the flight tracking platform, FlightAware. On Monday, there were no reported cancellations at the San Diego airport, as of late afternoon.

Similarly, the aviation data company Cirium showed that despite a 3% flight reduction still in effect over the weekend, most airports had few canceled flights.

For the holiday period, however, Cirium’s findings seem to suggest less robust air travel across the United States — although not in San Diego. Cirium reported Monday that flight bookings are down more than 3% compared to last year for the travel period of Wednesday before Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving Sunday. The data is based on advanced flight reservations made between June 30 and Nov. 14 in both years and represents domestic travel.

For select cities like San Diego, however, it’s a much different story.  Air travel holiday bookings from San Diego to all U.S. destinations are up 11.3%, compared to a 3% decline for Los Angeles International Airport and a 7% decrease for San Francisco, Cirium says.

While the Auto Club was unable to comment on Cirium’s findings, spokesperson Doug Shupe noted that people were likely waiting longer to potentially cancel flights given the uncertainty surrounding the government shutdown.

“We’re still 10 days out, and before people canceled flights altogether, we expected they would wait a little longer. But with the news today of the FAA ending flight limitations, we don’t think many people will make changes in their plans,” Shupe said.

“We’re encouraging our travel advisers, even though there is now a sigh of relief, not to take that for granted. Still get to the airport early. (During) these big holiday weekends, airports do get congested. And go ahead and reserve a parking spot ahead of time. These parking lots fill up fast, and people can spend so much time looking for a space, they end up missing their flight.”

That won’t be a concern for the estimated 5.9 million Southern Californians who the Auto Club says will be hitting the road to celebrate their Thanksgiving time off. That’s a 2.7% increase over the same period last year.

Unlike much of the rest of the country, Southern California drivers will be paying some of the highest gas prices of the year. In San Diego, gas was $4.88 a gallon on Monday, up more than 30 cents a gallon compared to a year earlier.

According to the transportation analytics firm INRIX, which the Auto Club works with for its forecasts, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons will be the most congested before Thanksgiving, and Sunday will see heavy return traffic.

For those looking to avoid the most congested interstates, INRIX advises that the route from San Diego to Palm Springs on Interstate 15 will be at its worst at 5 p.m. next Wednesday. The travel time to Palm Springs is estimated to be four hours and 49 minutes, which is 79% longer than the typical drive there.

In the Los Angeles area, the most congested route is expected to be Interstate 5 north from Los Angeles to Bakersfield, at 7:45 p.m. next Wednesday, when the drive will take four hours and 10 minutes, which is 147% higher than usual, Shupe said.

In light of expected congestion and long drives, Shupe advises motorists to be sure to tune up their cars ahead of the holiday to avoid any on-the-road mishap.

During the five-day travel period, he said the Auto Club’s roadside service expects to rescue 147,000 stranded drivers in California, primarily for dead batteries, flat tires and motorists being locked out of their vehicles. Last year, the number was roughly 140,000