Thousands to drive, fly this weekend; AAA expects 3rd busiest Memorial Day on record

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - Friday is a busy travel day for people heading out of the Portland metro area for vacation this weekend, whether that’s by car or by plane.

For Steve Kenton and his son Charlie, their Friday flight to Palm Springs on was on time.

“No issues getting here but we’ve had some issues in the past with late departures, late arrivals, flights getting canceled,” Kenton said. “I think you just have to sort of factor that in. Fortunately, t’s a direct flight so if we do have any issues, we’ll have those issues here and not at our destination, but yeah, we’ll see what happens.”

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FOX 12 also hit the road on I-84 East early Friday afternoon and traffic was already backing up. AAA said it could be the third busiest Memorial Day on record, with most travelers going by car this weekend.

Max Macdonald left early in hopes of avoiding the chaos.

“I’m sure we’ll stop if we see something pretty and have a picnic and hopefully not get stuck in too much traffic,” Macdonald said.

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Back at PDX early Friday afternoon, it was pretty quiet, though the airport expects 116,950 local travelers to fly out of town over the next several days.

“It’s still kind of the workday I guess, so probably a lot of folks commuting in for later flights this evening or beating the rush tomorrow, not sure. It’s also super nice here this weekend so maybe folks decided to stick around,” Kenton said.

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