How Many Americans Are Traveling This Week?

Fox News Radio's Eben Brown joins us to discuss how many Americans will be hitting the road and air this week. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaking of travel for such things, let's talk trains, planes,
and automobiles. This is West Michigan's Morning News Steve, Kelly,
Brett Bikita. That's Lauren Smith. Evan Brown with Fox News
Radio in Miami this morning. Evan, thanks for doing this today.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're welcome. Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
So by the numbers, talk to us a little bit
about who's traveling this year. Looks like a crowd, a
big crowd.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Eighty two million are expected to travel and expected to
travel fifty miles or farther away from home. That's up
from about eighty million last year. It's way up from
twenty twenty, which was like the worst year for Thanksgiving
travel because of the pandemic. We only had about fifty
six or so million travel that year, So big, big increase.

(00:46):
The majority of these travelers will be going by car.
About seventy three million are expected to go by car.
And that's pretty cool considering gas isn't really all that
much cheaper on the average in the country. It was
about three six a gallon last year. It's going to
be around the same this year this week or so
we think. But the cost of getting a rental car

(01:09):
this is neat is fifteen percent cheaper compared to last Thanksgiving.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
You know, Evan, I thought it was interesting when we
had all of the chaos with our airports and we
saw train travel. I still have a couple of friends
planning to do that and they are having a time
trying to book tickets. That's become such a big popular way.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, you know, I think a lot of people are
put off from the air travel because of well, first
of all, there was concern about the air transit issue
with regard to the shutdown, and people people don't just
make Thanksgiving travel plans, you know, this past Friday. They've
had them for a while, and probably while they were
booking them, they were going, zeez, what if that shutdown

(01:47):
is still going on. We have to find a different
way to get where we're going. So probably people look
towards Amtrak. You know, we in this country have an
historically not so great long distance train system. We're not
like Europe or Asia in that way. All we have
really is Amtrak, and not everyone's a big fan of it.
So but there's some people are discovering that you can

(02:10):
take overnight train trips on Amtrak. They do have overnight
lodging and you know, cabins on board the train that
come with you know, cabin service, and there's meals and
all that stuff. It is. It's not necessarily a big
cost saver, Believe it or not. You would think it
would be if they were trying to entice people away
from flying and using the train. But it is there.

(02:31):
It is an option. But I think more and more
people probably decided to drive this year and to make
that drive. And I'm wondering, however, if the rental car,
you know, the the the lower cost of it is
something that the rental car industry is trying to take
advantage of. Hey, you're afraid to fly, you can't get

(02:52):
a ticket on the train. Well, we've got a deal
for you over here at the rental car counter. Come
on over this way, and it's a way to maybe
entice people to rent a car. Plus, I'm also sure
that there's a lot more people this year that have
EVS and they're sitting there going, well, Grandma, is you
know one hundred and fifty mile drive. There may not
be a charger along the way. We better get a

(03:13):
gas car for this trip.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Evan real quick, is tomorrow the worst day of the
week because I know, like schools are out after tomorrow
around here and stuff, or is it still Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's generally it's Wednesday that's considered the worst. And you know,
I never understand this, maybe because I'm an experienced traveler
and most people don't do that much traveling if you
think about it. But if it were me, I don't
go anywhere on Thanksgiving. But if it were me, i'd
be I would have gone, you know, yesterday Sunday or
day Monday the crowds, because you know, and that's that's

(03:47):
just the way I operate. But most people say, no,
we'll get there on Wednesday. Yeah, well you might, you know.
And here's the thing I think we're you know, we
still have an air traffic controller shortage, even like from
before the shutdown, because they're they're understaffed. They're short, like
a few thousand of them. But all it takes is
one freak nor'easter somewhere to really ruin the whole because

(04:09):
it's a domino effect. Right, So even if you're thinking, well,
I'm flying from Florida to Texas, I'm not going to
be interfered with by a snowstorm. But one snowstorm in
Boston and the whole system collapses and

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Is Evan Brown with Box News Radio, Thank you and
Happy Thanksgiving you too,