Flight cancellations causing headaches for travelers ahead of busy 4th of July weekend

ATLANTA — The Fourth of July holiday is only a few days away, but Georgia already seeing a busy week of travel.

AAA says about three million Georgians are planning to skip town this holiday weekend. The travel surge comes as airlines continue to struggle with staffing shortages and flight cancellations.

Channel 2′s Justin Carter spoke with travelers at Hartsfield Jackson-Airport and Georgia drivers planning to hit the roads this weekend.

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Luis Colon said he almost stormed out of the airport when he was told his Frontier flight from Atlanta to Puerto Rico was canceled last minute.

“They canceled it until 6 p.m. My wife has to go to her job in Puerto Rico,” Colon said.

Almost 700 flights, including 200 at Delta, were canceled this weekend across the country. Major airlines have been facing staffing shortages, weather issue, and air traffic control problems.

Passengers told Channel 2 that it’s certainly a concern and frustrating.

“We were watching that on the news as a matter of fact,” traveler Treneshia White said. “Really concerned that that was gonna happen to us.. but it didn’t.”

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Georgia AAA spokesperson Montrae Waiters says 1.5 million Georgians will be traveling by air this weekend. Another 1.3 million are expected to travel by car.

“We have seen a 7% increase from pre-pandemic levels in 2019,” Waiters said. “We’ve been telling folks to plan, plan, plan, plan, plan early. We kind of had an idea that travel was going to increase with everything being open.”

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Waiters says gas prices are on their way down dropping more than eight cents in the last week.

Lauren Prothero says she’ll be driving to the beach this weekend but thinks gas prices are still too high.

“I was young when the 2008 recession hit and gas prices were up then. I was a kid watching what adults were going through then,” Prothero said. “Now being an adult paying for my own gas, I am not happy with them.”

AAA says travelers should shop around for gas just like you would for airline tickets. It also says to plan early as that’s the quickest way to save a few bucks.

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