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11 20 24 AAA's Skyler McKinley Previews Thanksgiving Travel
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You can get caught up on the news in about seven minutes. That is my promise to you as the host of the seven podcast from the Washington Post. And in that time, I will run down seven stories, everything from the most important headlines to fascinating new information you might miss otherwise. My name's Hannah Jewell. Go follow the seven right now, wherever you're listening. And we will get you caught up. As you were probably fully aware, traveling around the holidays, especially Thanksgiving, one of the busiest of the year, and it doesn't look like this year is going to be any difference. Enjoying us now on the KOA comments, Beart Health Hotline to talk more about it? From AAA, Colorado, it's Skyler McKinley. Skyler, thank you so much for your time as always. Well, let's break down some of these numbers that we're looking at both nationally and statewide. What are you expecting for the Thanksgiving travel forecast? Look, 2024, as we've spoken a few times, has been a record year for travel. Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel periods, and we're expecting around 80 million Americans are going to head 50 miles or more from home over the Thanksgiving holiday period. That's remarkable for a couple of reasons. One, it surpasses last year's record by about 2% or 1.7 million people. And markedly, it's 2 million people up over 2019. When I was last looking at these numbers in 2019, I thought, you know what, this is going to be the all-time record. We're never going to beat this. Then we had some very weird years as part of the pandemic. And now travel is really surging, which is an economic story as much as a travel story. Are we fully-- I probably ask you this all the time, Skyler. Are we fully recovered from COVID about people traveling now? Yeah, we are smashing every record that was last set for the most part in 2019. I think what's interesting, too, is we're also recovering from the supply side. So the airlines are adding new routes. Hotel rooms are all fully open. You can go to a buffet anywhere in America again. Travel is back. The travel industry is back. I think we've learned a lot of lessons as a travel industry from COVID. But when it comes to supply and demand, we are way back from where we were in 2019. And then, of course, during the COVID years. You said 80 million Americans, 50 miles or more from home. What are we looking at when it comes to just our Colorado numbers? We don't do the Colorado data sets to the same degree anymore, due to some forecasting differences. Although those will come back. I can tell you that we actually will see these trends play out in Colorado at a heightened degree. Colorado generally has folks of higher means who are more inclined to travel. We, of course, have a world-class airport at Denver International Airport. So it's going to be busy out there with Colorado's traveling. Also, we're going to have a lot of folks traveling to and through Colorado. Good news for the hospitality industry here. Good news for everybody at DIA. Bad news if you're a traveler, because there will be choked up roadways, there will be lines of TSA and that security, but that's all we can put up with if you just mind yourself a little gratitude. Well, you mentioned smashing the records. Let's talk about the numbers then. How many people will we anticipate going through DIA? How many people on the roads? Well, those are, I think, TSA questions broadly if we look at DIA specifically. What we know on the roadways is about 71.7 of that 80 million number is going to are going to be driving. A lot of those folks will be driving through Colorado. That's up about 1.6 percent over 2023. What's interesting and when I break down this data, look, 5.8 million Americans are going to be flying. That's up 10 percent over last year and we're seeing surging international travel, concert international travel this time of year actually down and folks are now just taking the whole week off and they're saying, "You know what? I'm going to go to Europe. I'm going to go to that bucket list destination Thanksgiving historically been a close to home travel holiday. It still is in the road trip data, but for the folks who are flying, they're increasingly going further distances for longer periods of time. Schuyler, you mentioned that we're long past any pandemic concerns. However, are we seeing any inflation concerns? Are there anybody making adjustments due to just economic costs? I think what's interesting here is it's a tale of two economies. Airfarers of stabilize, they're about 3 percent over last year, hotel costs are up 30 percent, car rentals are down 2 percent. What we've seen is the folks who can afford to travel by saving, by making strategic financial choices, they're going, they're going in record numbers. They have higher consumer confidence. The folks who have never been able to travel without making a significant sacrifice aren't even considering it anymore. So, this is the economy right now for the folks it's working for, it's working pretty well for, but there's a huge swath of Americans for whom it isn't working and they don't get to engage in this Thanksgiving tradition, which I think is terrible. Getting very granular here. What is the best day to leave for your trip if you're on the road, if you're flying out? The best time to go is going to be on Thanksgiving Day itself. Everything's going to be empty and clear and very, very safe. Of course, that only works if you're traveling a short distance. The worst times to travel by car are going to be the Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon ahead of time. And then look, if you're returning home on Sunday, leave as early as you can in the morning at the big travel. They did it on Friday, early early in the morning or after 1 p.m. And then on Monday morning, some folks will be traveling back on Monday morning, you're going to be mixing with commuters and that's going to mean extra traffic. But by all we say, you can't demand a traffic, you are traffic. AAA Colorado's Skylar McKinley thinks Skylar will catch up again when we're talking Christmas travel as well. Happy Thanksgiving. There's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank, you deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. Bank of Colorado, there's only one. Your FDIC. I bet you're smart. Yeah, and you like to hold your own in the group chat. 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