Travelers can expect to see a lot more traffic on the roads this coming Independence Day weekend. Flight Aware reports that almost seven thousand planes were delayed and close to nine hundred flights cancelled last Sunday alone. That one reason Alabama’s Triple-A is predicting heavy car traffic for the busy Fourth of July weekend. Spokesman Clay Ingram says almost fifty million people will hit the roads for the long weekend.
“The two busier days for people heading out somewhere will be Friday and Saturday,” said Ingram. “If you can leave Wednesday or Thursday, you will avoid I think the bigger, busier days. Same for coming back. From a traffic standpoint, to be traveling during the week when a lot of other people may still be at work, I think you’ll see the traffic a little more favorable.”
Airline flight cancellations and delays remain the big question mark and what may be driving people to hit the roads instead of flying. Delta Airlines took what’s considered to be the usual route of issuing a memo to its customers. The carrier predicted that the Fourth of July holiday would be “challenging.” Delta urged passengers to take the earliest flight possible and to allow for snags if customers were targeting deadlines like a cruise ship departure. Clay Ingram at Alabama Triple-A says those who drive this year will break travel records.
“It’s gonna feel like an old school, summer Fourth of July travel week,” Ingram predicted. “The vast majority of those people will be traveling by automobile. We are expecting around 42 million people traveling by automobile. That will likely be an all-time record high for automobile travel for the Fourth of July.”
And then, there’s coming Tuesday. That’s when Alabama Triple-A is forecasting the heaviest traffic for return trips over the long weekend. Clay Ingram adds, however, that because Independence Day falls on a Monday, highways could be busy all week long as motorists take extended holidays.
