Drew Altman, right, waits with her son, Hilsman Knight as he gets his luggage upon arrival at Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport.Thursday afternoon, minutes after Delta flight 4901 from Atlanta to Chattanooga touched down, Drew Altman stood just outside the main concourse at the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport and gazed down the big, central hallway, waiting for her son to emerge and officially be home for Christmas.
“There he comes,” she said, as her full-grown boy – a financial analyst in Arizona – emerged.
This is prime time for travelers coming and going from home, into the arms of loved ones scattered across the country, and moving by land, sea and air.
According to experts at AAA, more than 100 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more this holiday season, for the first time on the auto group’s record. Holiday travel is up from 99 million a year ago, and 94.8 million in 2013.
In 2008, as the country dipped into the Great Recession, only 85.7 million people traveled over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday season.
This year is the seventh-straight year holiday travel numbers have gone up. Experts credit the growing trends to better overall economic times, including lower unemployment, rising incomes, lower prices and surprisingly low gas prices.
Richard Valencia, center, walks with his PS4 game system to his luggage upon arrival at Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport Thursday. Leonard and Judy Richelson exit the moving stairway, lower left.Gas prices this holiday season are the lowest they’ve been in seven years. In Chattanooga on Thursday, gas prices averaged under $1.74 a gallon, or 52 cents per gallon less than the same time a year ago. Chattanooga gas prices also averaged 27 cents a gallon less than the U.S. average, according to AAA surveys of service stations nationwide.hovered around $1.60 a gallon. The national average gas price was $2.01 a gallon.
Gas prices along Signal Mountain Road average a mere $1.62 per gallon, according to GasBuddy.com.
Airfare also is generally cheaper this year – by about 6 percent – over last, according to AAA.
And there’s no reason to expect gas to shoot back up in the final weeks of the year, according to Don Lindsey, Tennessee public affairs director for AAA. Traditionally, gas prices continue to fall through the end of the year, he said, and stay there through the first of the year.
“We don’t see too much at this point that would indicate we might see a huge increase, by any dimension, through the end of the year,” said Lindsey.
While it may not make much of a difference to folks who are deciding whether or not to hit the road for the holidays – as 90 percent of holiday travelers do – lower gas prices do affect those who do take trips.
“Typically what happens with lower gas prices, you have trips that may be a little bit longer,” said Lindsey.
And a little extra money in your pocket when you get wherever you’re going. And “you can do a number of things with that extra money,” he said.
For the lucky few like Richard Valencia, meanwhile, lower gas prices and airfare are good, but they don’t compare to winning a brand-new PS4 console at the company Christmas party.
Valencia’s flight landed in Chattanooga on Thursday, and he emerged from the concourse carrying the console under his arm.
Only a fool would have checked such precious cargo.
“I wasn’t expecting to come back with one,” said Valencia, “but I’m pretty happy with it.”
Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.