DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. — With the holiday weekend ending, thousands of Pennsylvanians are returning home making travel experts anticipate this year’s journey to be one of the busiest travel days in recent years.
Approximately 525,000 people were expected to travel the Pa. Turnpike on Sunday, with many traveling to their homes in the Commonwealth.
PennDOT Spokesperson Fritzi Schreffler described Sunday as the second busiest travel day of the season, with the busiest day being the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
“Sunday is the day everybody gets back. It’s whether or not you’re going to be heading to school the next day [or] work the next day, so Sunday is a huge volume of traffic,” Schreffler said.
Nearly 5,000 passengers were similarly expected to arrive at the Harrisburg International Airport on Sunday - making 18% of the 26,000 people expected to pass through the airport during the Thanksgiving travel week.
Passenger Ansley Burnette from Lancaster flew back into Pa. on Sunday after spending her holiday in South Carolina.
“I woke up at 3:30 this morning to fly to Greenville. Then, I had a connecting flight in Atlanta to get back here,” Burnette told FOX43.
Like many, Burnette chose to travel over the weekend to make it back to work on time.
“My work week is Tuesday through Saturday, but I wanted that extra day [on Monday] to just recover and try to get some stuff done before going back to work,” Burnette expressed.
Thaddeus Sampson is a Harrisburg resident but spent his Thanksgiving in Atlanta, Georgia.
“My plane didn’t leave Atlanta until after 10 a.m., but it was relaxing in the airport. Overall, the trip was nice,” Sampson recalled.
Unlike Burnette, Sampson didn’t have to worry about returning to work.
“Fortunately for me, I’m retired,” Sampson remarked.
Despite many people returning over the weekend, some may still choose to spend Monday traveling home.
“We have done historical travel situations where we look and say, ‘This year, or the year before, Sunday was really high traffic, Monday was lighter traffic’, so we’re going to maybe recommend, if you can, drive on Monday,” Schreffler noted.