Now that school is out for the holidays, the pressure of travel is coming.
Thousands are hitting the road or flying through the air to get home for the holidays. Channel 9’s Ken Lemon checked in with the crowd of people at Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Friday.
Airport officials expect 2.75 million people will fly in and out of CLT over the next two weeks. That is an increase of approximately 6% compared to last year. It also means that many more people are making an effort to get to the gate.
Airport leaders say roads will be busy and it could take 45 minutes to an hour to reach the terminal.
Friday morning we saw a large crowd. The line at Checkpoint 1 was backed up, but people had planned this.
This also applies to the Peter family, who flies to Baltimore for the holidays. They arrived here three hours early.
“Timing for our kids, in terms of naps, and we really wanted to make sure we didn’t have to wait in line — we have to check a bag, we have to check a stroller, we have to check things at the gate,” said Chris Peter.
The good news is that once you arrive at your terminal, the delays will stop for most passengers. Unless you fly to New York, Boston or San Diego. According to Fly FAA, some flights had delays of half an hour to four and a half hours, largely due to snow and ice in the Northeast.
A woman flew from Philadelphia with her family and she told Lemon they were leaving at midnight to avoid trouble.
“We actually started early because we expected it to be a lot of traffic, you know. We expected that many people would travel during this period. That’s why we made sure we planned in advance,” said Ginger Weston.
You can check the flight status with CLT by clicking this link.
Holiday travel video: Channel 9 speaks to passengers at the airport
