Memorial Day travel expected to ‘take off’ despite soaring flight prices

Whether flying or driving, millions of people are expected to travel this Memorial Day weekend.

Flyer Calvin Ferrier just landed in Atlanta for a weekend with family, and it wasn’t as cheap as his light flight to Atlanta.

Ferrier told Channel 2′s Matt Johnson that he paid 60% more for his ticket.

The average plane ticket costs 45% more than it did last year, according to the Airlines Reporting Corporation.

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This means some travelers are paying more attention when they’re booking.

“Over the past few months, I’ve been putting aside more money, and I’ve been looking online every day,” said Ferrier.

Friday is expected to be the busiest travel day of the holiday weekend with 310,000 people coming through Hartsfield-Jackson. But not everyone is getting where they need to go.

Flyer Regina Littles told Johnson that she’s going to be at the airport until she can see what’s going on.

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Littles’ flight back home to New York is one of the 106 flight cancellations at Hartsfield- Jackson on Friday.

Many flights are being blamed on the weather.

“I came here for my grandbaby’s graduation, and I didn’t expect to get stuck whatsoever,” flyer Myah Clark said.

Clark is heading to Houston for a girls’ trip that will include a short-term rental home instead of the hotels she looked at.

“Those are better costing and hotels are way more expensive, just too much,” Clark said

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With a lot of things more expensive these days, she says coming up with a budget has become more important than ever.

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