SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – San Diego International Airport is ready to greet people whose bags are packed and ready to fly for Thanksgiving.
“With a one-year-old, it’s kind of difficult,” Courtney Taylor said.
Some like William Rice and Taylor have some precious cargo on their hands.
“So the faster we can get on the plane and get everything loaded, you know, it’s a lot,” Taylor said.
“I just didn’t want to get crowded up in the airport traffic. Like she said, with a one-year-old, didn’t want to take that chance,” Rice said.
The couple is like many of the nearly 500,000 passengers expected to go through the airport this Thanksgiving travel season: trying to beat the rush of flying the day before Thanksgiving.
"I'm expecting today to be a little bit lighter. I think the next few days will probably be busier closer to Thanksgiving,” Allie Doyle, who is flying home for Thanksgiving, said.
"Just didn't want to deal with the extra traffic and yeah that was the plan."
AAA Southern California expects many more people - around 5.7 million - to hit the roads for this holiday season compared to those flying. It projects that 676,000 will fly to their Thanksgiving destination.
“The good news for them is gas prices are actually down. They’ve been coming down across the country but also here in California,” Anlleyn Venegas of AAA Southern California said.
This time last year regular gas was 50 cents more a gallon, a little more than five dollars, according to AAA Southern California.
“I’m driving to Georgia so the price is going to go down as I go down south. So, not California prices so it’s actually pretty good traveling-wise,” Tierra Price, who is driving to Georgia for the holiday, said.
Still, the cost to drive is a little too much for some.
“So on top of other expenses, we don’t want the expense of filling up the tank. And, plus groceries are expensive so you’ve got to go shopping for that,” Breonna Osborne, who is staying home for Thanksgiving, said.
“So pretty much like gas prices; we just rather stay here rather than travel far.”
