Some travelers frustrated, others at ease over holiday travel at RDU

About 16 flights had delays on Saturday.

"One of the busier [travel days] I've seen," said one traveler at RDU.

Travelers, like the Cohen family, said the issues were taking a toll on them.

"We were on the plane and they ushered us off, and we had to go back home and rebook," said Coco Cohen.

Flight Tracker: Any flight, any airport

The Cohens said it took two tries to get home to Raleigh. The first ended on a tarmac in New York on Friday after they'd already boarded.

"The relief had just hit me that we had go on the plane and we were finally there, but then it was canceled and I was just so tired," said Cohen. "They didn't have a co-pilot for the flight."

For Smithfield native Thelma Akrinrombi, the trip home was an even longer ordeal.

"[It was] a terrible experience for me," said Akrinrombi.

Akrinrombi said she had to rebook her flight from Nigeria because of extortion at the checkout counter.

"I went to the airport to check in and unless I gave them money, they wouldn't let me check in. So I had to end up getting another flight," she described.

In December, RDU Airport officials said they were expecting around 494,000 passengers between Dec. 18 and Jan. 2. Airport officials encouraged travelers to arrive two hours early for domestic flights and three hours earlier for international flights to ensure enough time to park, check in, go through security, and get to the gate in time.

But, for others, it wasn't so bad.

"[It was] the smoothest airport travel day of my life probably," described one traveler.