Delta to cut more domestic flights

Delta is preparing to cut more flights. It plans to cut domestic capacity by an extra three percent in the second half of 2008, making a 13 percent overall cut by the end of the year. The Atlanta-based carrier estimates fuel costs will be $4 billion more than what they were last year.

Getting Home After The Holidays

Hartsfield-Jackson. (Google Earth)

Travelers heading home after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend swarmed airports Sunday but without the long lines and delays many had feared.

"So far, at least, it's been reasonable,'' Alli Charney of Atlanta said as she waited for a flight at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. "I just left very early, got a good night's rest and drank lots of coffee.''

Airport officials estimated about 1.8 million people would pass through Hartsfield during the long holiday weekend, including about 324,000 people on Sunday and 305,000 expected on Monday.

That is about a 4.6 percent increase in holiday weekend traffic from last year, airport spokesman Herschel Grangent said Sunday. Despite light rain, wait times were low at the airport about 25 minutes on Sunday, Grangent said.

But not all travelers were pleased.

Ben Oni had to wait an extra 12 hours at Atlanta for his flight home to San Jose, Calif., while lugging a 32-inch flat screen television, because he missed the check-in deadline for his original flight by one minute.

"It's awful. I feel very unhappy, extremely unhappy and disappointed,'' the program manager said.

Oni was one of about 324,000 people expected to pass through the world's busiest airport and brave what is typically one of the airport's busiest travel days of the year.

(The Associated Press)

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Hartsfield Airport Expects 1.3 million

The nation's busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International, is expecting 1.3 million people to pass through its door's this Labor Day weekend. That is an estimated six percent increase in traffic from last year’s Labor Day holiday.

The Transportation Security Administration has sent extra workers; every security lane in the airport is open.

Airport official, Herschel Grangent, told GPB news that the goal is for travelers to have to wait no more than 30-minutes in line, even during peak hours.

"That’s the goal: to keep everybody happy, keep everybody moving and getting to their planes on time," Grangent said.

Almost 250,000 people are expected at the airport per day. The heaviest travel is expected to be on Friday.