What to expect at Austin's airport over the Christmas and New Year's travel season

The Austin airport is preparing for a rush of holiday travelers. Friday is day one of the airport's busy Christmas and New Year's travel season and crowds are expected to match those seen during the record-breaking Thanksgiving holiday.

"We are leaving Austin to go to Colorado," said Dana Rieder, a holiday traveler at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Rieder and her family thought they were beating the rush by leaving Friday afternoon, but found out that wasn't the case before they ever got to the airport.

"The traffic was a little bit insane getting here today at 2 p.m., which was a little crazy," said Rieder.

ALSO | Task force could improve accessibility at COTA, other music venues

More crazy is expected leading up to Christmas. That's because ABIA had a record-breaking Thanksgiving travel season and Christmas and New Year's are already showing signs they could be even busier than they were pre-pandemic.

"In 2019, during the holiday travel season, the highest number we saw was 27,000 passengers. Just yesterday we had 28,000, so we already surpassed that number and we're expecting a pretty busy travel season," said Bailey Grimmett, ABIA spokesperson.

Starting Friday and continuing through Christmas, ABIA says there are likely to be a number of days that could bring 30,000 passengers to the airport.

"We've also seen a lot of flights get fully booked so we just anticipate this will be a very busy travel season throughout the entire week," said Grimmett.

To avoid the worst crowds the recommendation is to travel later in the day, especially after 9 a.m. That's what the Rieder family will be doing, but they still expect to have to navigate a few bottlenecks.

"I have a lot of concerns coming back on the 22nd," said Rieder. "It's probably going to be a mad house."

Airport officials say to keep from missing your flight arrive two hours early for domestic flights and three hours early for international flights. During the busiest times of day a fourth checkpoint will be opening at ABIA to help keep the crowds moving.