Leaving New York City after the early rush hour departure via the Throgs Neck Bridge and the New England Thruway
U.S. Sees Record Surge in the Air and on the Nation’s Highways at the Start of the Memorial Day Weekend
By Anna Breuer on 25 May 2024
If you were traveling within the United States on Thursday or Friday for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, you weren’t alone: Records were being set on the nation’s roads as well as in the air.
The American Automobile Association warned of potentially “unprecedented” highway congestion as it estimated that 43.8 million people would likely drive at least 50 miles (80 kilometers) in the period from Thursday to Monday. That alone would be a 4% increase over 2023.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration announced that over 2.95 million air travelers had traversed the nation’s security checkpoints on Friday, setting a new single-day record.
In a social media post, the TSA said on Saturday that it had screened 2,951,163 passengers on Friday, a figure that easily surpassed the previous record of 2,907,378 which had been set on the Sunday after the Thanksgiving holiday in 2023.
“If you flew yesterday, congratulations, you were part of a record-setting day!”, said Lisa Farbstein, a spokesman for the TSA, also on social media.
The new record came as travel for the Memorial Day three-day weekend began in earnest. The TSA had predicted it would screen close to 3 million travelers on Friday and had said that Friday would also be the busiest travel day of the bank holiday weekend.
On day prior, the TSA saw just under 2.9 million people at the nation’s airports, coming within shouting distance of the previous record. Five of the country’s ten busiest-ever travel days have been since May 16, 2024, the agency said.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
