COLUMBIA, S.C. — Although thanksgiving has come and gone, the crowds at Columbia Metropolitan Airport seem to be here to stay, and this past weekend was no exception.
"We did see a busy week during thanksgiving," says Lynne Douglas, public relations manager for Columbia Metropolitan Airport.
The holidays have arrived here at CAE, and that means crowds. The airport says they’ve seen year-to-year growth of 15% in arriving and departing passengers, even setting a new record this weekend with thanksgiving travel.
"When folks were heading back after the thanksgiving holiday, we did break a record going through here with over 2,700 departing passengers in one day," says Douglas, "But, we’re anticipating a great end of the year. We ended last year with 1.2 million passengers, and we’re confident we will surpass that number this year."
Airport officials say the full set of thanksgiving travel numbers will be available in the coming days.
Airport staffers are reminding travelers to give themselves at least 2 hours to arrive at the airport before their departure, especially with holiday crowds.
TSA is also advising travelers that unless they are stowing gifts in their checked bags, to make sure all gifts are unwrapped as TSA will unwrap all items when brought to the security checkpoint.