SLC airport reports few delays for post-Thanksgiving travel
Nov 28, 2022, 7:47 AM
SALT LAKE CITY — Major U.S. cities were hit with severe weather Sunday, leading to hundreds of flight delays and cancellations on one of the year’s busiest travel days.
The Salt Lake City International Airport managed to escape much of the woes seen at other airports like JFK International and LaGuardia airports in New York, and Boston Logan International Airport in Massachusetts. Those airports reported dozens of delays and several cancellations.
Most delays were less than 30 minutes for flights arriving at SLC Sunday night, aside from two flights from JFK that were delayed by an hour.
Thousands of US flights delayed Sunday as major storm system hampers travel
The TSA has reported the Sunday after Thanksgiving has been the busiest day for them all year. In 2019, TSA officials reported a record for most passengers screened in one day in its history on the Sunday following Thanksgiving, with 2.9 million passengers.
TSA expected 2022 post-pandemic, post-Thanksgiving travel to reach numbers near what it saw prior to 2020. Salt Lake officials reported the airport was busy, but not record-breaking, on Sunday, with a projection of 27,447 passengers flying out and as many passengers flying in.
Travelers flying in from various areas reported that flights went smoothly for them.
Darek Tuckett, his wife, and three young children flew to Las Vegas for the Thanksgiving holiday. They arrived back in Salt Lake just before 9 p.m. Sunday.
“When we got there, Vegas was crazy like waiting for a bus to get to the rental car and stuff like that, it was pretty nuts,” Tuckett said, of what travel was like before Thanksgiving. He said it was much quieter on the way home. “But on the way back, everybody must have taken the early flight.”
Kevin Busboom flew to Phoenix with his girlfriend and her family. They made sure they stayed up-to-date before their flight home.
“We heard on the radio that it was going to be a little bit delayed, so we went and looked up the times online actually and everything online was saying that it was running pretty in accordance with everything as it was,” Busboom said. “So we showed up a little bit early just to be safe, but didn’t really seem to have any issues.”
His group joked that the biggest hassle came in their arrival gate being changed to the B gates, which are a notoriously long walk away from baggage claim.
Tiago Lake, his brother and his father were sitting on a bench near the TSA check line Sunday night. They said they showed up more than two hours early for dad to send his sons back to Sacramento.
They were pleasantly surprised to find hardly any line.
“Usually the line is really long, and you don’t really know what happens like anytime at the airport– could be long, could be short. You just never know,” Lake said. He and his brother got to spend more time with dad to finish off their Thanksgiving trip, before heading back home.
Salt Lake City International Airport officials expect a busy holiday season and said if passenger pickup lines are long at arrivals on the ground level, flyers can get picked up at departures on Level 3.
