By Adrienne Vogt, Dakin Andone and Amir Vera, CNN
From CNN's Amir Vera and Austin Steele
More than 54 million people were expected to travel 50 miles or more from home this Thanksgiving, according to AAA.
The agency said the worst time for road travel Wednesday was between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET.
As one of the busiest travel days since 2019 comes to close, here's a look at highways and airports across the US:
To see more photos from Thanksgiving week, click here.
From CNN's Amir Vera
This Thanksgiving is expected to be the third busiest since AAA started tracking travel volume in 2000 and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has provided some tips to travelers during this extremely busy season:
TSA says you're allowed to bring food in your carry-on.
TSA says be sure to have your ID and know the different options you have for identification.
TSA says remove items from your pockets before the security process begins and place them in your carry-on.
From CNN's Amir Vera
With AAA expecting air traveler volume to be about 99% of the 2019 volume, some of the busiest airports in the US are preparing for the influx of travelers.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport says its expecting 2.5 million passengers and recommends travelers to arrive two to three hours prior to boarding.
O'Hare International Airport in Chicago strongly recommends passengers over the age of 2 to wear masks.
Los Angeles International Airport is reminding travelers they can reserve parking ahead of their flights.
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport knows traveling can be hectic — especially with kids — so they've assembled and dispersed ambassadors to hand out coloring books.
And Denver international Airport provided a time lapse of the more than 75,000 passengers they're expecting Thursday.
CNN's Pete Muntean is in traffic on Interstate 95 near Dumfries, Virginia, as holiday travel picks up on the road.
"This is the linchpin. This is where it typically gets bad. We have been in stop-and-go traffic for the last few miles now. This goes for about another 20 miles. We are in the thick of it," he said.
In some major cities, "the congestion today will be twice the worst congestion on a normal day," he added.
Over 54 million people are expected to travel 50 miles or more from home this Thanksgiving, according to AAA. The worst time for road travel today is estimated from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Watch his report here:
From CNN's Elise Hammond
Barry Biffle, the CEO of Frontier Airlines, said holiday airline travel is more spread out this year — with people flying out earlier and returning later than in previous years.
“The season is actually more elongated,” he told CNN Wednesday. “We started seeing outbound travel for Thanksgiving start last Thursday, actually, and we're seeing the returns spread into next week. It's kind of flattening out that demand.”
He said this allows more people to travel this year and has been helping airlines keep up with demand, especially in the midst of staffing shortages and canceled flights as the industry recovers from the pandemic.
Flight issues reached their peak this summer when the federal government saw a spike in complaints from angry airline passengers in August.
The Department of Transportation said it received more than 7,000 complaints from flyers, a 6% increase compared with July and a 320% increase compared with pre-pandemic levels.
Biffle said he thinks most of those issues that frustrated travelers this summer have been worked out now, just in time for the holidays.
“The industry did have some challenges, but you know, our perception is that pretty much everyone has gotten the staffing challenges behind them now,” he said.
Drivers will feel a bit less of a pinch at the pump for Thanksgiving this week, but gas prices are still averaging higher than last year at this time, according to Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy.
"The national average now just under $3.59 in the latest live data we have," De Haan told CNN's Jim Sciutto. "Prices up 17 cents from last year, but more importantly, as we progress into Thanksgiving, prices have plummeted 15 cents a gallon in the last week, with several states seeing decreases in excess of 20 cents a gallon over the last week. So a pretty big decline, but overall, Thanksgiving is still relatively pricey compared to where we've been in prior years."
De Haan has some tips on saving gas as you make your way to your Thanksgiving destination:
"Certainly, if you're on the road for more than, say, a couple hours, use that cruise control, maybe throttle it back a mile an hour or two. That could help save you the equivalent of 35 to 50 cents a gallon. Anyone crossing a state line should be hyper sensitive to the fact that gas prices can change significantly," he said.
"Shop around," he added. "...Don't be in a rush to fill your tank. Prices will continue coming down at a pretty brisk pace. If you're staying closer to home, don't feel the need to go pounce on gas prices falling. It's going to get better yet."
From CNN's Pete Muntean, Ross Levitt, Dave Hennen and Dakin Andone
Thanks to good weather, airlines have had to cancel very few flights today so far, with just 34 cancelled flights within, into and out of the US as of late Wednesday morning, according to data from flight tracking site FlightAware.
United Airlines — which expects to serve 500,000 passengers a day over the Thanksgiving travel period — had zero flight cancellations network-wide on Tuesday, it told CNN, including mainline and United Express flights, a remarkable figure given the holiday rush.
Sunday, however, could be more challenging, with widespread rain predicted for the Great Lakes and the Northeast.
The Federal Aviation Administration expects Wednesday to be the busiest travel day of the holiday so far by passenger volume, with 45,000 flights scheduled.
In its daily report, the FAA said that "heavy traffic is expected across the country."
"Delays from low clouds are possible in Dallas-Fort Worth (DAL, DFW), Miami (MIA) and Seattle (SEA). High winds could slow flights in the New York area (EWR, JFK, LGA)," according to the FAA.
The Transportation Security Administration said nearly 2.3 million passengers were screened at its checkpoints on Tuesday, a volume similar to what the agency saw Sunday and Monday.
From CNN's Chris Isidore
For travelers getting ready to make their first holiday trips since before the pandemic: prepare for sticker shock.
Airfares are way up. US gas prices are higher than they’ve ever been at this time of year. Rates for hotel rooms and rental cars have jumped 12% and 46% respectively from where they were in 2019.
The good news is that the prices for airfares, gas and hotel rooms are down from the record highs hit earlier in 2022, but they’re still among the highest on record for this time of year. Only rental car prices are lower than what travelers were paying at the end of last year, although they’re still far above pre-pandemic levels.
Airfare: Data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows the number of flights scheduled for November and December is down 15% from the same months in 2019. Many of those missing flights previously were flown by smaller regional carriers serving smaller airports, and some of those airports have since lost service altogether. But even with a greater percentage of flights on larger planes, the number of seats available is down 3.5% compared to that same period in 2019.
A surge in Covid-19 cases at the end of 2021 depressed demand for leisure travel, but this year it’s positively robust, according to the airlines and industry experts.
“Holiday travel has come back as strong as ever, and leisure travel is why that recovered,” said Scott Keyes, founder of travel site Scott’s Cheap Flights. “So many people wanted to travel over Labor Day and July 4, and as we’re going to see pretty soon, over Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
And that combination — strong demand and a tight supply of seats — means high fares.
Gas prices: The good news is that price of a gallon of regular gas nationwide is well below the $5.02 record hit in June. AAA reports that the average as of Sunday stood at $4.67, down 27%. And prices continue to fall — the average price is down 11 cents a gallon in just the last week.
But prices are still 8% higher than this time last year. The price of gas is typically at its seasonal low at the end of the year, frequently just before Christmas.
Hotels: Hotel prices also are more expensive than they’ve ever been this time of year. The Consumer Price Index, the government’s key inflation gauge, shows the cost of lodging away from home hit a record in May, and the October average, the most recent available, is down just 2% from that peak.
Rental cars: Rental car companies slashed their fleets during the early months of the pandemic, selling the cars they had to raise cash. With automakers still not back to full production due to a shortage of parts needed to build cars, including computer chips, it’s taken a while for the rental car companies to replenish their fleets to meet demand. The good news is that October CPI data shows car rental prices are down 3.5% from where they stood in October of last year, and down 15% from the record set in June 2021. Still, rental cars are 46% more expensive than they were in October 2019.
From CNN's Marnie Hunter
Organizers of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City expect about three million spectators to line the parade's route Thursday as balloons, floats and marching bands make their way from the Upper West Side to Macy's flagship store at Herald Square.
That's about half a million more people than organizers expected last year. In 2020, the parade was a TV-only event due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year, the parade — a tradition that dates back to 1924 — will feature 16 giant character balloons, 28 floats, 12 marching bands, 700 clowns, a host of musical stars and Santa Claus, organizers say.
If you want to get a jump on the big event, you can watch the balloons being inflated Wednesday afternoon, from noon to 6 p.m. ET, on the Upper West Side at 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue.
The parade is set to step off on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24, at 8:45 a.m. ET with TV coverage from 9 a.m. to noon.
And all the festivities come with road closures, of course.
"Heavy traffic conditions are expected, and there will be rolling street closures in Manhattan, so mass transit is strongly encouraged," according to the NYPD.
Find a list of affected routes on Wednesday and Thursday here.