SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Travelers at San Diego International Airport are experiencing relatively smooth operations as the busy holiday travel season begins, despite hundreds of flight delays earlier Friday morning.
I spoke with travelers who said going through the airport has been pretty seamless so far. While it was a bit hectic this morning with hundreds of delays, things have settled down throughout the day.
Terminal 2 at San Diego International Airport buzzed with activity as travelers like Gina Brown made their way out of town for the holidays. Brown is headed to Minnesota for the holiday season, trading San Diego's palm trees and sunshine for snow and 19-degree temperatures.
"I'm really excited to see my family, but I'm also thinking I'm going the wrong direction," Brown said. "Because it's 19 degrees and freezing there and snowing, and I'm leaving palm trees and sun."
Brown isn't alone in ditching the beach for snow destinations. Fellow traveler Alex Primus expressed cautious optimism about this year's travel experience compared to last year's challenges.
"Hopefully it'll go well. Last year was a little crazier," Primus said. "I think we had some, uh, a lot of fog, and so people kind of got pushed off to the next day. So it looks better than last year."
Brown and Primus are among thousands of travelers passing through the airport on Friday, marking the start of the holiday travel season. Airport officials expect more than a million people to arrive and depart from now through the New Year.
"This year compared to last year, we anticipate about a 4 to 5% increase, and that primarily is due to the airlines offering expanded service and new service to destinations," Nicole Hall, the public information officer for the airport, said.
Due to the high volume of travelers, airport officials emphasize the importance of arriving early for flights to avoid getting stuck in security or bag checks and missing connections.
"Plan accordingly. What we encourage people to do is give themselves enough time," the official said. "Kind of the standard rule of thumb is if you're traveling domestically, plan to arrive 2 hours before your flight departs and internationally 3 hours. That may seem like a lot of time, but there's plenty to do at the airport."
For Brown, both the traffic on the roads and the check-in process exceeded her expectations.
"I think like I said, everything is going way better than I expected, way smoother," Brown said. "There's not as long a wait time as I thought, so so far so good."
Travelers should also pay attention to weather conditions, particularly heading into next week, which could impact flight schedules.
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