Our Chicago: Memorial Day weekend and summer travel

CHICAGO (WLS) — Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial kick-off to summer. AAA expects 43.8 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more over the holiday.

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But what about the rest of the summer? Airlines for America, an industry trade organization, forecasts that U.S. airlines will transport 271 million passengers between June 1 and Aug. 31.

That’s up more than 6% from 2023, which was a record breaking year. But what will travelers find when they go to buy plane tickets?

“If they plan early, they will help themselves because flights are full this summer. nd the ones that are nearest in are going to cost you the most,” said AAA Vice President of Travel Debbie Haas said. “The other thing they can do is work with a travel advisor because travel advisors have access to inventory that an individual might not find on their own and travel advisors know ways to bundle hotels and flights to get extra value.”

Ja’Vonne Harley is the owner of Advantage International and hosts the radio program Traveling Culturati. She said domestically, Chicago is a popular travel destination, along with Las Vegas and New York.

Our Chicago: Part 2

International flights aren’t too behind on demand.

“You’re talking about London, you’re talking about Paris, of course, Rome and Japan.” Harley said. “Japan was very slow reopening after the pandemic. They actually opened in October of 2022, so many people are still traveling there. It’s only been about a year-and-a-half since they reopened.”

Another destination that some might have considered is Scandinavia.

“Folks are increasingly gravitating towards Scandinavia, particularly in summer because of the cooler weather up there,” Haas said.

Harley added that it’s not too late to plan an international trip.

“You can still get some good prices now, but don’t delay. Because not only are we looking at record travel numbers for the summer, but also understand that air traffic controllers are still short about 3,000 and that has caused airlines to limit some of the flights that they would have otherwise had. So, there may be a shortage of some flights and that’s why so many are full already,” Harley said.