'We are prepared': Pittsburgh airport braces for spike in Thanksgiving travel

As Pittsburgh International Airport officials Monday prepared for an onslaught of passengers during the frenetic holiday travel season, Josh Buchholz geared up to fly to Arizona for Thanksgiving.

The Grove City man and his wife, Erin Bonner, were among the first wave of 300,000 travelers predicted to set foot in the airport over the next six days — a 10% jump from 2024’s figure.

The couple has flown to Buchholz’s parents’ every Thanksgiving since he moved to Pittsburgh in 2014. This year, the airport’s $1.7 billion new terminal made the trip feel new again.

“This time was so seamless — and it’s been really easy to use,” said Bonner, as she stood near a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint in the cavernous terminal. “I’ve been to so many airports, but Pittsburgh International is still my favorite.”

“The lines aren’t that bad, either,” Buchholz, 42, added.

The couple, who kicked off their annual pilgrimage with a one-hour flight delay, are in good company. The trade group Airlines for America projects U.S. airlines will carry more than 31 million passengers on and around Thanksgiving this year, which would be an all-time high.

“Imagine the last couple of years at Thanksgiving — and add extra people,” Jim Garrity, a AAA spokesman, told reporters Monday morning inside the new terminal. “We’re expecting millions of people through this region alone and hundreds of thousands at this airport.”

Pittsburgh airport officials — who are expecting larger crowds, but not necessarily record-breaking ones — believe the new terminal will play a key role in handling the anticipated surge of holiday travelers.

The reimagined $1.7 billion facility — at 811,000 square feet, roughly the same size as BNY Mellon’s 55-story skyscraper in Downtown Pittsburgh — has increased the number of security lanes, tripled the number of parking spaces and helped dramatically slash baggage travel time from plane to carousel.

The airport has seen its gates and runways grow busier since the pandemic waned.

Nearly 10 million passengers came through Pittsburgh International Airport last year, which was the largest number of travelers there in nearly 20 years, according to data presented to the airport authority’s board.

The holiday season helped put an exclamation point on the 2024 numbers. Last December was the Findlay airport’s busiest since 2019, data show.

This year also is expected to draw to a big close, said Bob Kerlik, an airport spokesman.

October posted 1.5% more flights than at the same time a year earlier, Kerlik said. Officials expect Thanksgiving numbers to keep the roll going.

“This is one of the busiest times of the year for travel,” Kerlik told reporters. “And yes, we are prepared.”

Airports are preparing for increased air traffic nationwide. The TSA anticipates it will screen nearly 18 million travelers in its security checkpoints at U.S. airports from Tuesday through Sunday — more than 3 million on Sunday alone.

Kerlik believes the new terminal, opened last week after four years of construction, will immediately help ease the pressures of holiday travel.

The new terminal offers 12 TSA lanes, up from seven, Kerlik said.

Upgrades eliminated eight miles of baggage belts, Kerlik said. Suitcases now will travel twice as fast — in many situations, arriving at baggage claim before the passengers do.

New surface lots added nearly 3,000 public parking spaces to the site, Kerlik said. A new parking garage provides an additional 3,200.

Busy roads

Holiday travel surges are not exclusive to the skies.

Some 82 million people plan to travel 50 miles or more — most of them by road — during the extended Thanksgiving weekend, said Garrity, a spokesman for the AAA’s East Central branch, which covers Western Pennsylvania.

About 3.4 million of those travelers — “a slight increase” over 2024’s numbers — are expected to drive on the Pennsylvania Turnpike through the weekend, spokeswoman Marissa Orbanek said.

More than 700,000 are expected Wednesday, the busiest day for turnpike travel this week.

To keep cars moving, turnpike officials are suspending all “impacting construction” and routine maintenance work between 5 a.m. Tuesday and 11 p.m. Sunday.

Pennsylvania State Police and AAA are reminding motorists to travel safely before and after holiday celebrations — and to ensure they have a designated driver before drinking alcohol.

Troopers responded to nearly 15,000 crashes statewide — almost 700 of them DUI-related — in November and December last year, online data show.

“If you’re going to have a couple drinks over Thanksgiving … you shouldn’t be anywhere near the wheel of a car,” said Garrity, the AAA spokesman.

‘Like our Super Bowl’

When it comes to air travel in Pittsburgh, Mark Damron is pretty seasoned.

The Louisville, Ohio, man started working at Greater Pittsburgh Airport in 1982. The terminal, then the country’s second-largest after New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, had opened just 30 years earlier.

Damron, who commutes about 70 miles to work, stayed on after what he called the Pittsburgh airport’s “second terminal” was built as a U.S. Airways hub in the early 1990s.

Monday found Damron manning an American Airlines ticket counter in the airport’s newest space, a terminal defined by long, clean lines and vaulted ceilings speckled with tiny lights resembling stars.

“We’re seeing a lot of Thanksgiving travel already,” said Damron, 65, a customer service coordinator for American. “By the time Wednesday gets here, we’re going to be busy. And Sunday? That’s like our Super Bowl.”

The mood at the terminal was sedate Monday morning. Plenty of parking was available. TSA’s “standard” checkpoint lines reported a one-minute wait around 11 a.m.; the “pre-check” line was nearly empty.

A total of 39 flights were listed on a shiny new departure board near the TSA checkpoints. Six of them — including one set to carry Buchholz and Bonner to Dallas, on their way to Lake Havasu City, Ariz. — had been delayed.

“Right now, knock on wood,” Damron said, “because everything’s running smoothly.”