AAA maintains that Thanksgiving is not the busiest time of the year to travel
We have been told over and over throughout the years that Thanksgiving is the busiest travel time, and we all seem to think so. Even though holiday travel will increase by 11 percent this year over last year, its still safe to say that Thanksgiving is not the busiest travel day of the year.
According to Troy Green, the AAA national spokesman, there are worse times to travel. In the summer, there are about 5 to 10 days that are much busier than Thanksgiving.
Many of us also think that the price of gas goes up at Thanksgiving. Green says this time of year is typically lower than other times of year. Although this year will be different, because of the recent spike in oil and given that the market is driven by supply and demand, it is a little higher. Typically November is one of the cheapest times to buy gas.
Another misconception about Thanksgiving travel is that there are more flight delays during travel around this holiday. Bill Mosley, who is spokesman for the Department of Transportation, looked at flights to check “on time performance.” What he found was in 7 of the last 9 years the airlines actually performed better during this time frame than any other time of year. There were not as many delayed flights and airlines seemed to be on time.
Regardless of what we have been told and what statistics show, we do know that there will be a lot of people hitting the roads and getting on planes. No matter what form of transportation you use, you need to be prepared for anything.
