On Tuesday, severe weather rolling over the eastern part of the United States looked to be threatening the busiest travel time of the year, with more than 55 million people set to travel by bus, rail, or aircraft before the Thanksgiving holiday.
The United States National Weather Service predicted thunderstorms from the lower Mississippi Valley to the mid-Atlantic area between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, with snow falling in portions of New England.
The bad weather was expected to create delays and increased congestion during what the AAA organization anticipates to be the biggest travel time in the nation since 2019, prior to the COVID-19 epidemic.
According to AAA, the majority of individuals vacationing were anticipated to drive, potentially driven by a reduction in fuel costs beginning in 2022. AAA predicted that 49 million individuals will get behind the wheel between November 22 and November 26, up 1.7% over the same time in 2022.
According to AAA's research, the amount of Americans traveling around the holidays has fully recovered since the pandemic halted the tourism sector in 2020.
Only nine US flights had been canceled and 850 had been delayed as of Tuesday morning, according to the flight monitoring website Flightaware, out of more than 48,000 total planned flights.
Airlines for America predicted that US airlines will transport 29.9 million passengers between November 17 and November 27. That would be an all-time high, up 9% from the 27.5 million passengers in the same period last year and 1.7 million more than pre-COVID record levels.
"We've never seen so many people fly over Thanksgiving before, so I encourage everyone who's going to be traveling to pack your patience," said spokeswoman Rebecca Spicer in a video message posted on the group's website.