Buffalo Airport, State Police Brace for Busy Holiday Weekend on the Roads and in the Air

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — With less than 24 hours until America’s birthday, residents of Western New York are already on the move, trying to squeeze in last-minute flights and road trips to see the fireworks Thursday night.

AAA predicts this week will be the busiest July 4 holiday period on record, with 5.7 million travelers expected to be in the air and another 60.6 million on the nation’s highways by Sunday.

Record travel this summer is expected to increase 5% from last year and well above pre-pandemic figures.

2 On Your Side spent Wednesday morning and afternoon at Buffalo Niagara International Airport talking to travelers. While airlines have said they’ve been preparing for this week for months, travelers said they’re already seeing some challenges in the skies.

“They were covered in planes, so they didn’t have room for us to take the taxi,” traveler Jennifer Letourneau told us of her trip. “We waited and waited and waited and watched our other plane board, and then we did a lot of cardio.”

“Here we are on our way from Washington DC to Rochester. From Rochester they gave us a taxi to Buffalo. It was really terrible,” said another traveler named Shanna Bell.

Ditching the plane for the car won’t help you avoid this problem either, as the roads are expected to be just as congested.

State police and Gov. Kathy Hochul are keeping an eye on the roads, implementing sobriety checkpoints across the state this week, as last year, more than 35,000 tickets were issued to New Yorkers on the road during this Fourth of July period, including 1,200 for drunk driving.

One final tip for busy times like this is to sign up for the TSA PreCheck program to cut down on travel time. The TSA says this can save you about 20 minutes at security this time of year.