What Nebraskans should expect for holiday travel

It’s the Holiday season which means it’s one of the most traveled times of the year.

According to the TSA, people are traveling more this week heading into Thanksgiving than they did in the past 5 years.

With multiple airports in Nebraska -- both big and small -- the question on travelers minds is how will this busy travel season affect Nebraskans?

Steve McCoy, Chief Information and Development Officer for the Omaha Airport Authority, said, “So for Thanksgiving 2023 we are expecting approximately 181,000 passengers to travel through Eppley Airfield. And that’s based on the airline schedule that’s currently published. To kind of put that in perspective, that’s a little under 5 percent more we experienced last year in 2022 and about 5 percent more than we’ve seen in the pre pandemic years in 2019. So I think it’s going to be our busiest Thanksgiving year.”

With an increase in travelers, this means possibly more hassle in TSA lines. However, McCoy has a few tips to get you there with more ease.

“We recommend folks arrive two hours, prior to their departure which gives them enough time to find parking, check in and make their way to security. And if folks do travel frequently we recommend they enroll in programs like TSA pre check and that will provide for an expedited security screening process for future travels.”

Eppley Airfield is Nebraska’s biggest airport offering over 30 direct flights. But smaller airports like the Lincoln airport. says it don’t expect much to change.

Rachel Barth, Director of Communications and Customer Engagement at Lincoln Airport, explained, "As far as adding capacity we spoke with our airline partners United they were not planning to add in anymore capacity which means they weren’t adding in like additional flights. They said that they base that on previous years numbers and they think that what we have now will be sustainable to get us through. The holiday season. Also unlike Omaha most of our travelers, most not everybody but most are flying for business purposes and actually business slows down around the holidays”

McCoy also says that weather can also be a factor in travel especially this time of year. He reminds travelers, to check the weather forecast as well as your flights especially if you have a connecting flight.