Airport crowds not a problem

AIRPORT DISTRICT — Professional travelers know to avoid airports, bus stations, train stations or freeways during Thanksgiving.

Planes, trains or automobiles, it’s bedlam.

But not this year.

While Thanksgiving travel was expected to be up across the nation from last year, travelers arriving at Bob Hope Airport said their holiday jaunts were easy, security lines no problem, and congestion on the runways obsolete.

“This was one of the easiest trips ever,” said Burbank resident Jeremy Guskin. “Getting a ride from JFK was easy. Even Friday, after Thanksgiving, there weren’t a lot of people or lines at the stores.”

Guskin left Burbank on Wednesday afternoon to visit friends and family in Manhattan and said there was no stress or inconvenience in leaving the supposed height of travel dysfunction.

“I’m your average New York-to-L.A. traveler. I do it twice a year, but it’s never been this easy,” Guskin said.

Guskin avoided any delays on the tarmac in New York, a stunning feat, he said, in light of the estimated 38.4 million Americans traveling 50 miles or more on Thanksgiving, according to AAA.

“I’d like to think I was lucky,” Guskin said. “Maybe it was the recession. Maybe people thought it’d be too busy [to travel].”

Burbank airport officials said they were less interested in the total number of passengers moving through Bob Hope Airport this weekend than they were with the final November numbers. Month-to-month numbers have been down between 15% and 22% until a few months ago, when the trend began narrowing, and October was down by 7.6% from 2008, said Victor Gill, spokesman for the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority.

“The single five-day holiday period has never been any kind of a bellwether with larger results,” he said. “What we pay attention to is more the macro issue of how many travelers for the month came through, and that’s what we’ll be looking at this time around as well.”

Airport officials didn’t have complete projections for how many travelers would departing and arriving.

“When I listen to other airports talk about X or more this weekend — I’m not sure how they come up with their data,” Gill said. “Airlines share some advanced booking information, but that’s generally unreliable of giving you Thanksgiving passengers.”