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Indianapolis Airport expecting busiest holiday turnout in over a decade

By Sara Wittmeyer

Posted May 24, 2024

Lighted pedestrian walkway at Indianapolis International Airport

Travelers cross a lighted pedestrian walkway at the Indianapolis International Airport. About 18,000 people are expected to go through security every day through Tuesday. (Thomas Aiko & Juliette Isaac / Wikimedia Commons)

The Indianapolis international airport is expecting this holiday weekend to be its busiest in more than a decade.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) predicted that Friday will be the busiest day for air travel over the holiday weekend, with nearly 3 million people expected to pass through airport checkpoints. It could rival the record of 2.9 million, set on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year.

TSA officials are projecting about 20,000 travelers to depart Indianapolis this weekend. The biggest travel day will be on Memorial Day with nearly 22,000 people flying out of Indianapolis. About 18,000 people are expected to go through security every day through Tuesday. The biggest travel rush will be felt between 4 and 6 in the morning.

Agents from the TSA screened 2.74 million airport passengers the Friday before Memorial Day last year. May 26, 2023, was one of the busiest days for TSA that year and had the highest single-day volume of passengers since Thanksgiving in 2019.

The patience of Memorial Day weekend travelers was tested Thursday by widespread delays across the country, but there were relatively few canceled flights, raising hopes that airlines can handle bigger crowds expected Friday.

By early evening on the East Coast, more than 6,000 flights had been delayed Thursday, with the biggest backups at the three major airports in the New York City area and Dallas-Fort Worth International.

“Airports are going to be more packed than we have seen in 20 years,” said Aixa Diaz, a spokesperson for AAA.

Airport officials say travelers should plan to arrive a 2 hours before their scheduled departure.

More travelers will be on the road. AAA estimates that 43.8 million people will venture at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and Monday, with 38 million of them taking vehicles. They said gas prices will be similar to last year's travel rates, about $3.57 on average nationally.

The weekend's highway traffic and crowded airports could be a sample of what is to come. U.S. airlines expect to carry a record number of passengers this summer. Their trade group estimates that 271 million travelers will fly between June 1 and August 31, breaking the record of 255 million set — you guessed it — last summer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.