CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — With America’s birthday less than 24 hours away, Western New Yorkers are already on the move, trying to make last-minute flights and road trips to catch the fireworks Thursday evening.
AAA is projecting this week to be the busiest July 4 holiday period ever reported with 5.7 million travelers expected to take to the skies and another 60.6 million to hop on the nation’s highways through Sunday.
The record summer travel numbers are expected to be up 5% from last year and well over pre-pandemic numbers.
2 On Your Side spent Wednesday morning and afternoon at Buffalo Niagara International Airport chatting with travelers. Despite airlines saying they’ve been preparing for this week for months, travelers said they’re already seeing some difficulties in the skies.
“They were covered in planes, so they had no place for us to taxi in,” traveler Jennifer Letourneau told us about her journey. “We waited and waited and waited and watched our other plane board, and then we got a lot of cardio.”
“Here we are, traveling from DC to Rochester. From Rochester, they gave us a cab to get to Buffalo. It’s just been really bad,” another traveler named Shanna Bell said.
Ditching the plane for the car won’t help you avoid this either, as the roads are supposed to be just as congested.
State Police and Gov. Kathy Hochul are keeping their eye on the roads, setting up sobriety checks across the state this week, as last year over 35,000 tickets were issued to New Yorkers on the roads during this July 4 period, 1,200 of which were for DWIs.
A final tip for busy seasons like this is enrolling in TSA PreCheck to cut down on travel times. TSA says doing so can save about 20 minutes at the security line this time of year.