Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport is always a busy place as families squeeze in getaways as part of MEA Weekend.
Kyle Potter at Thrifty Traveler tells Vineeta Sawkar on the WCCO Morning News that it's likely going to be more difficult to find any last-minute travel deals this year.
"You might be able to find a bargain if you're extremely flexible, but the best thing to do would be to go to Google Flights and use their Explore Map," Potter says. "So, you can plug in Minneapolis as your departure airport and then just scan across the map of the country and see where you might be able to get for a reasonable price."
Thrifty Traveler provides a guide on how to best use Google Flights here.
Potter says fares are up especially for those looking to book something in the past few days. He also said he's curious if the explosive growth in air travel will continue.
"Do we see some signs that travel demand is starting to taper off, after people got those really big, big trips out of their system, especially this past summer," asks Potter. "The answer to that is I just don't know yet, so it will be very interesting to see just how big this week is."
Potter explains that this weekend will be a "bellwether" for travel going forward, saying that the economy, inflation and a year-plus of what he has called "revenge travel" has finally caught up to demand.
Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Jeff Lea says Thursday will be the peak, with 460 departures. That is a 12% increase over a year ago. He says people who plan to park at the airport should make an advance reservation, travelers should allow plenty of extra time to go through security, and anyone arranging a pickup from the airport should take advantage of both levels.
"We anticipate, just based on the data that we have, we'll see upwards of 46,000 or more just going to the checkpoints Wednesday and Thursday," explains Lea. "And those would be two of our busiest days since the pandemic."
The annual Minnesota Educator Academy is the largest professional development opportunity for educators in Minnesota. It takes place the third Thursday in October. Those days, students do not have classes, enabling educators in Minnesota to attend the conference.
The "MEA weekend" is one of the busiest travel times in Minnesota, even busier than Thanksgiving in many years.
In terms of passenger traffic, this summer was the busiest ever at U.S. airports and that demand has kept prices high. Though consumers have seen some price relief on the airfare front in recent months, the supply and demand equation doesn't get any easier as the holiday season draws closer.
Since late summer, airfare experts have advised travelers to book holiday airfare as soon as possible to avoid paying a premium to fly during the season's high-demand travel periods.
That means you should have already booked Thanksgiving travel if you wanted the best price, and you better get to Christmas and New Year's soon. Experts say there is little point in waiting as airfares have only trended in one direction as dates get closer, and that is up.