Memorial Day Travel Expected to Slow
AAA Predicts Slightly Less Traffic; Blames High Gas Prices
Planning to stay close to home for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend? You're not the only one.
About 360,000 fewer people will travel during the long weekend than did last year, according to a forecast report released Thursday by the automobile club AAA. The auto association expects that about 37.9 million Americans will travel by air and car, a 1 percent decrease from the 38.2 million who traveled last Memorial Day weekend.
The first dip in six years is attributed to high gas prices, the association reported.
"This year's gas prices, combined with other troubling aspects of the U.S. economy, have pushed some Americans to the tipping point, and it is clear that some Americans will choose to stay home this holiday and relax with friends and family rather than take a vacation," said Mark Brown, AAA's executive vice president of association and club services.
Brown said that for a car that gets 25 miles per gallon, a 500-mile road trip will cost $13 more this year than last. He also suggested people drive at reduced speed and fill their tires to save on gas.
The Memorial Day weekend forecast comes on the heels of a summer travel forecast released Tuesday by the air travel industry that predicted similar patterns. The air travel industry said it expects fewer passengers to travel during the entire summer this year than last, also due to the high price of fuel.
The air travel industry forecasts that about 2.7 million fewer passengers than last season will travel through the nation's airports between Memorial Day and Labor Day, a 1 percent decrease from last summer.
Still, James May, president of the Air Transport Association, told ABC News on Tuesday that the impact of high fuel prices are "probably not going to come this summer as much as it's going to come this fall."
"We are looking at the very real potential of laying employees off, eliminating destinations, cutting frequencies, doing all those things to accommodate for that extraordinary price increase because we are not able to pass the full impact of that to the passenger in terms of the price of the ticket," May said.
