Maryland travelers deal with crowds, holiday rush amid winter weather impacts
The travel rush before 2026 is in full swing, with roads, rails and skies filled with people trying to get back home.
TSA says Sunday was its busiest day of this season, screening 2.9 million passengers nationwide and almost 31,000 at BWI Thurgood Marshall. The airport says its busiest day of the holiday season was last Monday.
Weather impact on travel
The winter weather that is moving into our area has caused travel headaches all weekend, making its way across the country.
Airports nationwide are played catch up after winter weather blanketed the Midwest over the weekend causing extensive delays and cancellations.
"The only thing I don't like is the turbulence going over the Midwest," Veletta Crawford said before her flight to California. "My flight's not until 2:30 but you see I'm here early. I would say just leave early. Do not wait to the last minute."
As of Monday afternoon, there have been almost 150 delays and a 18 cancellations at BWI in the last 24 hours, according to Flight Aware.
While some passengers at BWI say they expected problems with their flights because of the high winds, so far they say they are on time.
"It's always very complicated, but I would say it's going smoothly so far this year," said Bianca Leonard before her flight back to California after driving to BWI from Pittsburgh. "There was a high wind warning this morning because we were driving down it's kind of crazy, and we weren't sure if that was going to affect our flights. It seems to be okay so far."
Traveling on the roads
After Christmas, storms on the East Coast and in the Midwest caused delays on the roads.
Andrew Guthrie, who was visiting from Florida, said he tried to beat out Mother Nature's timing to drive back to Maryland from New York.
"We had to clear Central Jersey by, say, 4 p.m. and we had a little bit of freezing rain right as we're getting into Delaware, and all the traffic in Delaware, but it all worked out," Guthrie said.
Other travelers say there was little to no additional traffic on the roads during their visits.
"We only chose to drive once in the DC area, and that was DC slow. Outside of that, everything's been fine," said traveler Kevin Nugent.
Holiday savings at the pump was also a welcome surprise for drivers. In Maryland, the average price for a gallon is about $0.20 less than what it was a year ago.
"Not seeing like the crazy amount is it's great to actually have, but we have not seen anything change in the grocery though," said Fethi Mohammed.
The highways could be busy Tuesday too. AAA says the best time to drive is early morning the worst is in the afternoon and evening.
If you can hold off traveling home until New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, AAA says fewer people will be on the roads.