'All hands on deck' for Thanksgiving travel at Salt Lake airport

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SALT LAKE CITY — With 300 days still to go until the opening of the new Salt Lake City International Airport, travelers should brace for big crowds around next week’s Thanksgiving holiday, airport and Transportation Security Administration officials said Tuesday.

The holiday rush is set to start Friday, with more than 25,000 travelers expected to be screened at security checkpoints, with the next surge of some 29,000 on Nov. 27, the day before Thanksgiving, according to TSA spokeswoman Lorie Dankers

But the busiest day of travel will come the following Sunday, Dec. 1, when more than 30,000 travelers are expected to depart, she said at a news conference held in an already jammed airport terminal on a day when the airport’s parking lot had filled up by midmorning,

The best day to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday? Thanksgiving Day on Nov. 28, when fewer than 14,000 travelers are anticipated to depart the Salt Lake airport. The numbers represent an 8% increase in holiday travelers going through the TSA screening process over last year, Dankers said, compared to a 4% hike nationwide.

“We’re definitely going to feel more people coming through here,” Dankers said, warning airline passengers to plan ahead for everything from crowded parking lots to long lines by making sure they arrive at least two hours before their flight and don’t pack any items that will slow screening.

That includes wrapped gifts, Dankers said, suggesting instead passengers use gift bags so something like metal bells or tubes of beauty products that could trigger a search either in carry-on or checked luggage can easily be inspected without having to be unwrapped.

Baked goods such as breads, cookies and cakes can be carried on a flight, she said, but jams, jellies, sauces, gravies or other liquid foods must be 3.4 ounces or less just like toiletry items, or they will have to be packed in checked bags.

Anyone with questions about traveling with a specific item can send a picture to @askTSA on Twitter or go to the Ask TSA Facebook page, Dankers said, and receive a response within about a half-hour. She said specially trained officers can be scheduled 72 hours in advance to assist passengers with disabilities.

Also Tuesday, airport officials offered a demonstration of a service in place since February to help vision-impaired passengers get around the airport. Known as Aira, for Artificial Intelligence Remote Assistant, the passengers are guided by an agent through a free phone app or special glasses that allow the agent to see the surroundings.

Everett Bacon used the app on his phone to head through the busy terminal and a TSA checkpoint, telling reporters before the airport offered the free service, he used to have to wait for busy airline or airport personnel to take him through the airport to the gate.

“It was kind of limiting because they have a lot to do,” Bacon said. Now, he said, he has more independence when he travels thanks to the app, which has been used an average of 112 minutes a month. “I can find the gate. I can find a restaurant. I can find a restroom if I need one.”

Erma Catino, center, bids farewell to his parents, Maryann and Teddy Catino, who were visiting from their home in Stamford, Conn., at the Salt Lake City International Airport on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019. (Photo: Spenser Heaps, KSL)

Nancy Volmer, the airport’s communications director, said the $3.6 billion construction project underway to replace the existing facilities shouldn’t hinder holiday travel. She said the airport was built to handle 10 million passengers but last year, saw 26 million.

That’s created regular congestion curbside and fills up the parking facilities, she said, asking travelers to be patient. The busiest times at the airport security checkpoints are between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m., with an afternoon rush between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.

“We’ll be all hands on deck,” Dankers said of the TSA, even bringing plainclothes employees to the checkpoints to help. She said the checkpoints in Terminal 1 are open 24 hours a day and those in Terminal 2 may open even earlier than the usual 4:30 a.m. for the holiday rush.