ORLANDO, Fla., Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Americans are finally returning to the skies this Thanksgiving weekend, and travel overall also is expected to be up, the American Automobile Association said Wednesday.
"Despite an economy that still shows only sporadic signs of recovery, holiday travelers are returning to the skies in numbers almost as heavy as during the Thanksgiving periods prior to 2001," said AAA Travel Vice President Sandra Hughes.
"This is definitely a positive sign for an airline industry that has struggled mightily in the last year," Hughes said.
AAA expects air travel to climb 6 percent as 5.1 million Americans plan to fly this holiday, compared with 4.8 million last Thanksgiving, when the nation was trying to rebound from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Overall, AAA predicts 35.9 million Americans will take a trip 50 miles or more from home next week, 1.7 percent higher than the 35.3 million who traveled last year.
A total of 30.8 million people plan to go by motor vehicle, a nearly 1 percent increase from a year earlier, when 30.6 million traveled by car.
Eighty-six percent of holiday travelers will go by motor vehicle, down slightly from last year's 87 percent -- the highest percentage of auto travel ever recorded by AAA.
Motorists will find the nationwide average price of gasoline at $1.458 per gallon, up more than one penny from last month and about 25 percent higher than last year's pre-Thanksgiving price.
AAA's holiday travel projections are based on a national survey of 1,300 U.S. adults by the Travel Industry Association. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent.
