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The unofficial start to summer had residents ready to get out and about this weekend, crisscrossing the country and the state The Transportation Security Administration says more travelers passed through airports this Memorial Day weekend than in the same holiday period before the pandemic.

Now, in New Jersey, road trips were most favored, with a 7% predicted increase compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Tracy Noble is the spokesperson for Mid Atlantic.

She joins me now for an update on the start of the summer travel season.

Well, Tracy, good to see you.

I hope you had a great weekend.

We were expecting about a million New Jersey residents to hit the roads.

What did we see this weekend?

Well, we did see people traveling in abundance.

Travel is back to almost pre-pandemic levels.

And that was certainly the case.

If you looked at the traffic that we saw on our New Jersey roadways, And we were expecting an extremely busy time at our airports as well, with air travel in New Jersey expected to be up over 10% compared to the previous Memorial Day.

Wow.

So was this a real test for the air system?

We know what happened last summer, last Memorial Day weekend.

It was a test.

And, you know, I'm not seeing any significant reports of any major delays or holdups.

So, so far, so good.

Of course, people are still returning home today and will continue to do so possibly through the remainder of this week as they have extended their holiday weekend.

But things are looking good.

You know, it used to be that the Friday before Memorial Day weekend was the big travel day.

It seemed like people hit the roads early this year.

Is that true?

What did you all find?

We found that people were heading to their holiday destinations much earlier taking taking those extra days, leaving Thursday, extending it to either today being Tuesday or even through the end of this week.

And it's all due to that pent up travel energy that we've had, you know, because we postpone trips over the last several years.

So people are ready to get back at it.

Yeah.

So cabin fever has not left us.

I have to ask because I live in the area of MetLife Stadium and a lot of us were expecting an absolute nightmare because, of course, there was a big Taylor Swift concert.

Were the roads as treacherous as a lot of us expected them to be?

They were very busy.

I don't have specific data as to what, you know, increased toll rates or any of that, but they were busy and adding a major concert on a holiday weekend only exacerbates things.

Yeah, it certainly wasn't.

Wasn't going to make it easier.

Real quick, Tracy, before I let you go, what does this say for the summer travel and tourism season ahead?

Well, I think it shows what we can expect coming into the summer travel season next holiday being the Independence Day holiday.

But people have been making plans.

So despite the added costs that we're seeing this year, people are planning to travel so we're expecting a very robust travel season.

Yeah, it certainly helps that gas prices are down.

Tracy Noble with AAA.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for having me.

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