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Team coverageIt's about that time when people start to get off work and, especially today, that means heading somewhere for Thanksgiving.
Today is traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year. The airport is busy, but it's not holiday busy.
Dwayne Baird, with the Transportation Security Administration, said that normally there would be a long line to get to the ticket counter, but not this year. He says the number of people traveling this week is down 23 percent, and that number is reflected across the entire northwest.
So far the biggest rush of people checking in for flights at Salt Lake International was early this morning; and even then, the lines were pretty short.
Traveler Dana Hatch said, "So far, it's been really fast. We did curbside check-in and got the whole family traveling today. It's been really smooth so far."
"It's actually not as busy as we thought it would be," said traveler Amber Heap.
AAA says that decline in airline passengers is because of the economy. Rolayne Fairclough, with AAA, said, "You travel with discretionary funds, or a discretionary budget, and if you feel as if that were threatened, or you can't make it back up again, then you pull back on things like travel."
AAA still estimates that nearly 300,000 Utahns will travel this week.
Sheila Heap and her family are headed to Cancun for the holiday. She said early preparation helped her family when the cost of travel went up. She said, "We used our frequent-flier miles for the flight tickets, and the reservations for where we're staying were made months ago."
For Zaz Smith, it only took a little research to save a few bucks. Smith said, "The airline tickets were actually cheaper than the bus tickets. The bus was $217, and the airline ticket was $190 something."
For others who were buying tickets at any cost, they said family outweighed the price. Traveler Zach Muir said, "I've been out here for about a year now without seeing them, so they were really like, ‘We don't care [about the price of the ticket.]' It's just more that they want you home for the holidays."
Doug Eddington said, "We have children scattered around the United States and overseas, so there are certain times you travel on a holiday, and you just do it."
Planes this weekend, on average, will be 77 percent full. As a result, the airport will not have any additional staff on hand this weekend.
AAA gave us a few tips for those making last minute holiday plans. If you are making a hotel reservation, you can usually save some money by calling, even from the hotel parking lot, compared to actually walking into the hotel lobby and making it in person.
And fill up on gas away from the freeways or highways because it's generally cheaper when you get into town.
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