Syracuse Airport comes close to breaking travel record Sunday

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — A busy time in the skies, and right here in the salt city.
The Syracuse Airport saw nearly 6,000 people come through TSA Sunday, just short of the record.

“It doesn’t surprise me that it was super busy,” said traveler Kier Palmer. “We found that all the airports we went through were busy this weekend.”

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Over three million people flew across the US this past weekend, breaking a record.
The TSA attributed that to people wanting to travel post-covid.

“It’s because the comfortability of travel. People are more confident, they want to get out, they want to experience things, they want to see new sights they’ve never seen before,” said Bart Johnson, the Federal Security Director for TSA. “They want to catch up with family. Life is very short.”

Johnson says the top three destinations were Florida, North Carolina and Texas.
Raleigh is where Ashlynn Hoffman is coming from to visit Syracuse. She had a smooth flight.

“I get anxious, like there is too many people, I’m going to freeze up. But it wasn’t that bad,” she said.

And this bold prediction from Johnson.

“In Syracuse, I can guarantee you that we are going to break the annual record for the calendar year and additionally I believe nine of the top 10 travel days across the country have occurred in 2024,” he said.

The high volume of traffic is no surprise for these travelers.

“You shouldn’t be closed off your whole life. You should experience things while you’re young,” said Hoffman. “I’ve been so busy with school and work, work, work, I just want to take a break.”

“I want to go to Asia,” said Palmer’s grandson Noah.

“There is a big world out there waiting for people to see it. I think it is so important for those people to have those experiences, get to know new people, get to know new places,” said Palmer.”

And this was a sign of getting back to normal.

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