Record holiday travel: Nearly 5.1M Ohioans hitting the road, skies

Whether driving or flying to visit family or take a vacation this holiday season, more Ohioans than ever are opting to travel compared to previous years.

Approximately 5.1 million Ohioans — approximately 43% of us — will travel 50 miles or more from home during the 13-day year-end holiday travel period, which AAA defines as Dec. 20 through Jan. 1.

The total number of projected travelers statewide is a 2.5% increase compared to last year, beating a pre-pandemic number of 4.8 million and setting a new record since 2000, when AAA began tracking holiday travel.

More than 415,200 area residents are expected to travel, up 2.4% from last year, and they’re part of a record-breaking 122.4 million Americans expected to take to the roads, skies and railways, up 2.2% compared to a year ago and 2.8% compared to 2019.

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AAA Club Alliance spokesman Morgan Dean told this news outlet that the organization has continued to see holiday travel build back year in and year out post-COVID.

“Even this year, where economic uncertainty has been a big part of decisions, people have continued to prioritize travel,” Dean said. “Now, are they sometimes balancing the budget by saying ‘We want to get this trip in. We can’t really afford to go to the fancy restaurant, the fancy resort we like to (visit), but we’re going to go to go to this resort that’s a little bit less expensive because we’re still going to get the trip in’ and by and large, both with holidays and with travel in general, that is what we’ve seen this past year.”

Airline travel expected to soar

The number of people traveling by plane also is projected to surge this year. More than 283,000 Ohioans, about 23,000 of them locally, will travel by airplane for the holidays, making it the busiest travel year since AAA began keeping track. Nationally, a record 8 million Americans are expected to fly, a 2.3% increase compared to last year.

Dayton International Airport spokeswoman Melissa Riley Patsiavos said the airport will have additional staffing for an easy “to and through” experience for its holiday travelers.

“We also have ample parking with a new AI technology system that will expedite the passenger’s check in and out time and an improved TSA checkpoint,” Patsiavos said. “We also have additional seating in the gate areas.”

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Based on scheduled capacity, for Dec. 20 to Jan. 1, airlines are offering more than 48,000 roundtrip seats at Dayton International Airport, or about 5% more than last year.

Based on the total volume of seats, the airport’s airline partners anticipate the busiest travel days being Sunday, Dec. 21 and Friday, Dec. 26., Patsiavos said.

In total on each of these two days airlines will offer 4,300 roundtrip seats at Dayton International, she said.

Patsiavos suggested travelers visit www.tsa.gov/travel/travel-tips for tips for traveling with food for the holiday table, wrapped gifts and other items.

The majority of travelers will take to the road

About 90% of travelers nationwide, nearly 109.5 million of them, are expected to get to and from their destination via motor vehicle, according to AAA.

Nearly 4.5 million Ohioans are projected to travel by motor vehicle, up 2% over 2024 and besting the previous record of 4.3 million set in 2019. Of them, more than 375,000 are local people, up from more than 367,000 last year.

Gas prices are helping fuel the surge: the national average this month dropped below $3 a gallon for the first time in four years.

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Matt McClain, petroleum analyst for GasBuddy said with the national average falling further, the country is at multi-year lows heading into Christmas.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on with gas prices, believe it or not, most of it is actually good for the consumer,” McClain told this news outlet Friday. “Right now in Dayton, for example, prices are averaging roughly about $2.82 a gallon. That’s a tiny bit up over the past week or so by about seven cents, but down about 26 cents per gallon from this point last year overall.

Ohio’s average price for a gallon of gas was running at about $2.83 a gallon Friday, down about 21.6 cents per gallon over the past year, and the average price for a gallon of gas nationwide sat at roughly $2.92, McClain said.

“Here’s a lot of the reasoning behind all of that,” he said. “You’re looking at an oversupply of oil to some degree, and you also have to recognize last year at this time, Ukraine and Russia, the geopolitical aspect ... was highly more concerning than it is right now. The combination of things has actually helped bring prices down.”

McClain said that is expected to continue into the end of the year.

“So while the prices may be inching up just a tiny bit this week, we actually expect the prices to continue a downward trend in the next several weeks,” he said.

Alternate modes of transportation show biggest growth

Nationally, nearly 4.9 million people are expected to travel by alternate modes of transportation, including buses, cruises, and trains, a 9% increase compared to 2024 and a 25% leap over 2019. More than 204,000 travelers are expected to travel by other modes this year, including bus, train and cruise. While that is a 10% increase over 2024, it trails behind the record more than 250,000 Ohioans who traveled in 2003.

More than 17,200 in Montgomery, Greene, Miami and Clark counties are expected to travel by other modes of transportation, according to AAA.

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