Southern Californians planning out-of-town excursions during Labor Day weekend could expect a lot of travel companions.
AAA’s domestic bookings for flights, hotels, rental cars and cruises are up 4 percent, compared to last year’s Labor Day holiday, and international bookings have increased 44 percent, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California.
“While AAA does not issue a formal travel forecast for the Labor Day holiday, Southern California travel bookings indicate that vacation interest continues at the high levels of the Memorial Day and Independence Day holidays, which matched or exceeded pre-pandemic levels,” the agency said.
More than 1.1 million passengers are expected to traverse through Los Angeles International Airport between Thursday, Aug. 31, and Monday, Sept. 4, said Victoria Spilabotte, a spokesperson for the airport, in an email Wednesday.
Friday is expected to be the busiest day to travel, with 229,000 passengers anticipated at LAX. Roughly 224,000 passengers are expected Thursday, and 220,000 on Monday. More than 90,000 cars are expected to enter the center terminal area on Thursday and Friday.
This year’s peak travel days represent about 92% of the passenger volume compared to March 2019, and about a 12% hike compared to last year, airport officials said.
“LAX has experienced a very busy summer travel season welcoming more passengers through our airport than we have seen since early 2020,” said Justin Erbacci, CEO of Los Angeles World Airports, in a statement.
“We reached a major milestone in June and July when our international passenger traffic surpassed 2 million guests each month. The passenger volumes for the upcoming Labor Day weekend signify a successful summer and encourage us that this momentum will carry into the fall and winter months,” he added.
Airport officials recommended arriving at least two hours in advance for people traveling on a domestic flight during the extended weekend, for those with plans to travel abroad, arriving three hours prior to flight departure is strongly advised.
Since garages are expected to be nearly full, travelers should reserve a parking space online ahead of time by going to Parking.FLYLAX.com. This will ensure them a guaranteed space at the airport. A secondary cell phone waiting lot is now available at 96th Street and Alverstone Avenue so people could wait in their cars there until their guests are ready to be picked up from the terminal curb.
LAX is not the only airport anticipating a busy weekend ahead.
Ontario International Airport said they expect more than 102,000 passengers over the holiday weekend beating their 2022 numbers by 16.6%, according to a press release from the airport.
Last year the airport saw 87,000 passengers pass through the airport during the holiday weekend which exceeded the airport’s initial expectation and pre-pandemic numbers from 2019. The airport has continued with the upward trend adding almost 20,000 passengers to its forecast for 2023.
“The air travel industry is highly competitive, yet Ontario is growing passenger volume month after month,” said Atif Elkadi, chief executive officer of the Ontario International Airport Authority, in a statement.
The airport contributes part of its growth to travelers taking advantage of air services to popular destinations which were either not offered or had less availability such as Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, Guadalajara, San Salvador and Taipei, said the press release.
Long Beach Airport expected to receive more than 57,000 passengers from Thursday through Monday. The busiest travel days are projected to be Friday and Monday, with over 12,000 people each day.
“We expect passenger activity to be 18% higher than the prior year due to the increased number of flights this year,” Lindsey Phillips, a spokesperson for the airport, said in a Wednesday email. “This Labor Day weekend is expected to exceed pre-pandemic years.”
Mike Christensen, a spokesperson for Hollywood Burbank Airport, advised passengers to “to check with their airlines for flight status updates, arrive to the airport at least 90 minutes before their flight time, be prepared for heavy traffic at and around BUR, use Terminal B for pickup and drop-off of passengers, and call the parking hotline at 818-729-2245 for updated lot conditions before they head to the airport!”
In addition to road trips and flying, people are also venturing onto ships.
The Port of Los Angeles expects to see around 14,000 cruise-ship passengers embarking onto and departing from vessels at World Cruise Center over the course of this Labor Day weekend.
“Compared 2019 to what we’re going to do in 2023, we’ve effectively doubled our number of cruise passengers and cruise ship calls,” said Christopher Chase, assistant director of marketing at the Port of Los Angeles, in an interview Wednesday.
This represents “a significant increase” in passenger volume, especially since the cruise industry went through a complete shutdown of around 15 months during the pandemic, Chase said.
He attributed the jump in traffic to people’s renewed interest in cruises as ships return to sailing, as well as the region’s proximity to popular destinations, such as Mexico.
As a result, the port’s cruise terminal has added additional ship lines, which in turn rejuvenate the local economy by bringing more visitors to the retailers, hotels and restaurants on shore.
“Every time that ship calls here in the port, it’s really very localized,” Chase said. “It’s really about a million dollars worth of economic impact to San Pedro and Wilmington.”
There will be two “ship calls” at the port this Labor Day weekend, meaning there are two scheduled stops at the port by cruise ship. Together, they will pull in $2 million to the region’s economy, according to port officials.
There were around 220 ship calls last year, which generated around $250 million in revenue to the local communities, they said.
Last year, visitors to Los Angeles contributed nearly $35 billion in total business sales, which represents 91 percent of 2019’s “record-setting levels,” according to Los Angeles Tourism, the official non-profit destination marketing and sales organization for the city.
Nationally, the Federal Aviation Administration predicts that this will be the third-busiest holiday weekend of the year so far, behind only the Juneteenth weekend, which included Father’s Day, and the Presidents Day break.
Despite storms, computer woes, rekindled COVID concerns and other issues, travel is soaring. Canceled flights, however, remain elevated as airlines face their last big test of the prime vacation season.
Hurricane Idalia weakened and headed out to sea Thursday. While the storm left damage and power outages, its impact on travel eased. Airlines canceled several dozen flights in Florida and Georgia on Thursday but returned to full strength Friday.
Staff Writer Jordan Darling and The Associated Press contributed to this report
