Holiday travel shifts into overdrive as Christmas Day nears

With Christmas just four days away, holiday travel was shifting into overdrive on Friday with air travel at Raleigh-Durham International Airport expected to soar.

Posted 12:05 p.m. Dec 21, 2018 — Updated 12:50 p.m. Dec 21, 2018

Emmy Victor, WRAL reporter,

and

Alfred Charles, WRAL.com managing editor

RALEIGH, N.C. — With Christmas just four days away, holiday travel was shifting into overdrive with air travel at Raleigh-Durham International Airport expected to soar.

Early Friday, the line to clear security snaked through the terminal and curved around to the terminal doors.

A family from Cary was in line early as they tried to make a 6 a.m. flight.

"It's moving," said Tonya Bartos. "It's moving now (and) it's not bad. We've been in longer lines here."

Airlines advised traveling passengers to arrive at the airport at least two hours before their scheduled flight.

For passengers at RDU, that advice is sound because the airport is getting busier.

During the month of November, 575,000 passengers departed from RDU, an 11 percent increase from November 2017, airport administrators say.

RDU is working to ease congestion by expanding the security area in Terminal 2. The project is expected to add more security lines and is expected to be completed this spring.

Passengers who fly out of RDU but are traveling along the East Coast could see delays because of a massive system that brought wet weather from Florida northward to New York.

Many Eastern cities are expected to see another day of soaking rains as the system slowly pulls out of the region.

WRAL meteorologist Aimee Wilmoth says spotty showers are possible in the Triangle and central North Carolina before clearing conditions and cooler air move in Saturday.

Motorists hit the road for the holidays

Travel on the nation's interstates and highways were also expected to be busy.

AAA has predicted that more than a third of Americans will travel over Christmas and New Year's in 2018, putting it on track to be the nation's busiest travel year since 2001.

According to a survey commissioned by AAA, nearly 113 million Americans are expected to hit the roads this year, a 4.4 percent increase over last year.

Falling gasoline prices should make travel by vehicle easier with prices for a gallon of unleaded gas hovering just above the $2 per gallon mark.