Twenty-six airports will reach Thanksgiving-like levels of congestion on a daily basis much sooner than expected unless the U.S. Congress acts to support infrastructure investment, the U.S. Travel Association claimed in a study released Tuesday.
Of the nation’s top 30 airports, all will have at least one day a week where “it feels like the Wednesday before Thanksgiving” by 2020. Two airports, Midway (MDW) and McCarran International (LAS), will feel that way every day by 2015.
“The already-bad news about our overwhelmed air travel system in the U.S. has gotten worse since last year,” says Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. “This goes well beyond just the headaches of the traveling public. There are real consequences for our economy and for jobs if our air traffic system is not adequately meeting the passenger demand.”
“The point of doing this is to demonstrate to our political leaders the urgent need for action,” Dow says. “Our infrastructure has been losing ground as the rest of the world has been improving in past decades.”
The latest U.S. Travel Association data builds on last year’s Thanksgiving in the Skies study, which measured how soon the average day at U.S. airports would resemble the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, notoriously one of the most strenuous air travel days of the year. U.S. Travel published both studies in conjunction with the research firm Cambridge Systematics Inc.
This year’s data shows that 13 of 30 airports surveyed are already experiencing Thanksgiving-like congestion levels at least one day a week. Twenty airports will reach such congestion levels two days a week within five years.
In the next 10 years, air travel is forecast to grow from 826 million to almost 950 million enplanements per year globally, Federal Aviation Administration data shows. In the U.S., travel growth has the potential to add billions of dollars in travel spending and support more than a million new jobs, the U.S. Travel Association says.
Separate research published by U.S. Travel earlier this year found that Americans are actively avoiding taking trips because of flying hassles. Air travel problems because of poor infrastructure, caused U.S. consumers to skip 38 million trips in 2013, costing the economy $35.7 billion, the group claims.
Dow says the U.S. Congress needs to act to ensure continuing vitality and competitiveness of the U.S. travel industry, noting: “Major investments in air travel infrastructure are desperately needed to restore service to even basic levels of adequacy, let alone cope with the expected coming demand.”
