There won’t be crowds at RDU airport this Thanksgiving, but NC highways could be busy
The single busiest day in Raleigh-Durham International Airport’s history came during Thanksgiving week last year, when nearly 55,000 passengers passed through the terminals on their way home that Sunday.
This year, RDU expects to serve less than 104,000 travelers all week.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving because of the growing number of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths. In North Carolina, an average of about 3,570 people have been diagnosed with the disease each day over the past week, compared to about 2,000 a day a month ago. A record 1,601 people were reported hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday.
Business at RDU was down more than 70% compared to last year in October. Airport officials expect the number of travelers to increase about 7% this week compared to recent weeks, peaking Sunday at about 18,200 for the day.
“Although we expect a modest increase, we anticipate that passenger traffic will remain well below the record-setting numbers we saw in 2019,” said airport president Michael Landguth.
‘The wait-and-see travel trend’
In a survey of North Carolina residents, AAA found 22% said they planned to take a trip of three or more days during the holiday season, compared to 44% who said they actually did last year. The survey was done in October, before the recent surge in cases and the CDC’s plea to stay home.
Still, AAA expects nearly 1.5 million North Carolinians to travel over the holiday week. About 1.4 million, or 95% of them, will drive, AAA says. That’s down only a few percentage points from last year.
AAA notes that those who do drive are likely to go shorter distances and reduce the number of days they are away. And they have the option to decide not to go at all.
“The wait-and-see travel trend continues to impact final travel decisions, especially for the Thanksgiving holiday,” Tiffany Wright, spokeswoman for AAA in the Carolinas, said in a statement. “The majority of travelers will go by car, which provides more control over social distancing and flexibility to modify holiday travel plans up until the day of departure.”
The CDC’s travel advisory urged people to avoid large gatherings and those with family and friends who don’t live with you.
“The safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving this year is at home with the people in your household,” the agency’s Erin Sauber-Schatz told reporters last week.
Tasha Raines of Atlanta says coronavirus will not keep her from flying this week, but it has made her more careful. On Monday, Raines flew her 5-year-old daughter Kyleei for a Thanksgiving week visit with her grandmother in Durham, then planned to return to Atlanta to catch a flight to see her fiance in Maine. At the end of the week, she’ll do it all in reverse.
Raines said she was particularly vigilant with shielding her daughter from the virus.
“I’ve been cautious about her touching the railing or touching the buttons,” she said. “My precautions were a lot higher than normal.”
Increased precautions at the airport
At a press conference Monday, RDU’s Landguth sought to assure travelers that the airport and the airlines are taking steps to reduce the risk of contracting coronavirus. Both have increased disinfection and are requiring masks. The airport has installed Plexiglas shields at all desks and hundreds of hand sanitizer stations throughout the terminals.
Landguth cited a recent report from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health that concluded that the steps taken by airlines made the risk of contracting the coronavirus on an airplane about the same as daily activities such as grocery shopping or eating out.
“So if you’re going to the grocery store, you’re probably going to be safe to actually travel through RDU,” he said. “Airports and airlines are doing everything we can to ensure that everybody is safe.”
Landguth said RDU expects about 5 million passengers to pass through the airport in all of 2020, compared to 14.2 million last year. Nearly 3 million of this year’s customers flew in the first three months of the year, before the pandemic nearly halted air travel in April.
While air travel has ticked up in recent months, RDU expects the rebound to be slow. Last week, airport planners said they don’t expect to need the remote parking lots until 2024.
For more information on traveling at RDU, with links to travel advisories for each of the 10 airlines that do business there, go to www.rdu.com/fly-confident-fly-rdu/.
This story was originally published November 23, 2020 at 1:01 PM.
