Thanksgiving travel on rise

By Stephen Voss
Bloomberg News Service

ORLANDO, Fla. — Americans are more willing to leave home this Thanksgiving than they were a year ago, with the biggest gain expected in trips by air, the AAA travel club said in its holiday forecast.

AAA, the largest U.S. motoring and leisure travel organization, expects 35.9 million Americans to journey 50 miles or more for the Nov. 28 holiday, an increase of 1.7 percent from a year earlier. Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest periods for travel in the United States.

Of those traveling, 30.8 million are expected to go by motor vehicle, up almost 1 percent, while air passenger traffic is projected to jump 6 percent to 5.1 million. AAA's projections are based on a survey of 1,300 adults by the Washington-based Travel Industry Association.

"Since nearly all major airlines have reduced their flight schedules at least 10 percent in the last year, there are fewer seats available," AAA's vice president for travel, Sandra Hughes, said in a statement. "Travelers expecting to find space at this late date will need to be flexible."

Motorists can expect to pay more for fuel on their journeys, the association said. Regular gasoline is fetching an average of $1.46 a gallon nationwide, up 1 cent from a month ago and 25 cents higher than the prices paid last Thanksgiving, according to AAA.

Crude-oil prices alone don't explain why service stations are charging more, AAA said. Crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed earlier this week at $25.90 a barrel, down from more than $31 in late September.

"Reduced inventories of gasoline compared to one year ago, strong demand by U.S. motorists, and reluctance by gasoline retailers to lower prices in the face of a potential war with Iraq," are additional reasons why retail prices remain higher than a year ago, according to a statement issued by AAA, the 100-year-old organization that formerly called itself the American Automobile Association.

Still, higher fuel costs won't deter most Americans from traveling, the association said.

U.S. gasoline demand reached a record 9.32 million barrels a day in the week ended Nov. 1, while nationwide inventories of the fuel, at 192.1 million barrels, were 7.2 percent lower than a year earlier, Energy Department figures show.