Long Beach Airport is expecting even more passengers than last year during the Thanksgiving travel season — 130,000 from Nov. 22, through Dec. 1. That’s an 8% increase over last year.

To help ease the travel crunch, the airport is pausing road construction so it can open all four lanes outside its historic terminal during Thanksgiving week.

The airport has been working since April to repave and realign the roadway to smooth travel. During that time, two of its four lanes have been closed.

The center divider and two easternmost lanes have been closed during construction outside the Long Beach Airport historic terminal, but they’ll be open for the week of Thanksgiving. Diagram courtesy of the Long Beach Airport.

But with 15,000 travelers expected on Nov. 26 and Nov. 27, the airport decided to pause construction so it could open all lanes for the busy Thanksgiving week. The Sunday after Thanksgiving is expected to be the busiest day with more than 16,000 projected travelers.

“We’re proud to offer an easy, stress-free travel experience on some of the busiest travel days of the year,” Mayor Rex Richardson said in a statement.

The airport said it will have “extra good cheer” during the holiday season with live music played by local artists.

Nevertheless, they advised travelers to make sure they have plenty of time to catch their flights.

They should:

  • Allow extra time to get through security by arriving 90 minutes early (especially for morning flights)
  • Use the airport’s cell phone lots instead of circling while waiting for arriving passengers
  • Check flight schedules in advance in case of last-minute changes
  • Take advantage of the airport’s pet relief area north of the terminal if they’re traveling with animals

Long Beach isn’t the only place expecting a huge increase in travel over Thanksgiving.

Roughly 6.58 million Southern California residents are expected to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, topping pre-pandemic travel numbers, according to Automobile Club of Southern California.

The projected travel number is a 2.8% increase over last year’s record-setting figures. The Auto Club noted that for the first time, it has added the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the Monday after Thanksgiving to the holiday travel period, “to better capture the flow of holiday travelers.”

The travel period covers seven days, beginning Nov. 26 and ending Dec. 2.

The 6.58 million prediction is 3.5% above the travel figures from 2019, prior to the COVID pandemic.

The vast majority of travelers, roughly 5.7 million, are expected to reach their destination by car, while 676,000 are expected to fly and 182,000 are expected to use other means, such as bus, train or cruise ship.

Nationally, 79.86 million people are expected to travel, making it the busiest Thanksgiving holiday season on record.

“Travel volumes for major holidays this year have consistently surpassed pre-pandemic levels, and the Thanksgiving holiday will be no exception,” Jena Miller, the Auto Club’s vice president for travel products and services, said in a statement.

Jeremiah Dobruck is executive editor of the Long Beach Post where he oversees all day-to-day newsroom operations. In his time working as a journalist in Long Beach, he’s won numerous awards for his investigative reporting and editing. Before coming to the Post in 2018, he wrote for publications including the Press-Telegram, Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.