The July 4th holiday rush is on. TSA expects to screen a record number of travelers this weekend
A long Fourth of July holiday weekend in the United States is expected to create new travel records
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Nicole Lindsay thought she could beat the holiday-week travel rush by booking an early-morning flight. It didn't work out that way.
“I thought it wouldn’t be that busy, but it turned out to be quite busy,” the Baltimore resident said as she herded her three daughters through Palm Beach International Airport in Florida. “It was a lot of kids on the flight, so it was kind of noisy — a lot of crying babies.”
Lindsay said the flight was full, but her family arrived safely to spend a few days in Port Saint Lucie, so she was not complaining.
Airlines hope the outcome is just as good for millions of other passengers scheduled to take holiday flights over the next few days.
AAA forecasts that 70.9 million people will travel at least 50 miles (80 kilometers) from home over a nine-day stretch that began June 27, a 5% increase over the comparable period around the Fourth of July last year. Most of those people will drive, and the motor club says traffic will be the worst between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. most days.
Federal officials expect air-travel records to fall as Americans turn the timing of July Fourth on a Thursday into a four-day — or longer — holiday weekend.
The Transportation Security Administration predicts that its officers will screen more than 3 million travelers at U.S. airports on Sunday. That would top the June 23 mark of more than 2.99 million. American Airlines said Sunday is expected to be its busiest day of the entire summer; it plans more than 6,500 flights.
TSA was created after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and replaced a collection of private security companies that were hired by
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