Travel

Summer’s unofficial kickoff is here and Americans are wasting no time getting out of town. From crowded airports to congested highways, Memorial Day travel is heating up, thanks in part to a dip in gas prices.A record 45.1 million people are expected to travel between Thursday May 22 and Monday May 26, breaking the 2005 holiday weekend record of 44 million travelers, according to AAA. Of those travelers, more than 38 million are expected to hit the road, marking the highest number of Memorial Day drivers AAA has ever recorded. Fueling this travel frenzy is good news at the pump: A gallon of regular gasoline was $3.17 as of May 19, down 11% compared to the same time last year, according to AAA. Airports are also bracing for the holiday rush. More than 3.5 million people are expected to f...

For some travelers, Newark Liberty International Airport has become a no-fly zone.With passengers spooked by reports of harried air traffic controllers' losing radio and radar contact with planes and dismayed by the resulting massive flight delays, the average daily number of travelers flying out of Newark, New Jersey, has dropped by as much as 20% compared with this time last year, from around 72,983 during the second week of May 2024 to 58,496 last week, according to Transportation Security Administration data reviewed by NBC News.Meanwhile, New York's LaGuardia Airport experienced a 16% increase in the average daily number of travelers during the same period, from 36,367 in 2024 to 42,037 this year, the data shows.And New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport has had a sl...

Members of the railroad engineers union for New Jersey Transit went on strike right after midnight Friday morning, crippling a system that around 350,000 people rely on, officials said.The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen said that its around 450 members in New Jersey Transit were walking off the job at 12:01 a.m., in a dispute over pay.Around an hour before that deadline, Gov. Phil Murphy and New Jersey Transit President Kris Kolluri told reporters that they wanted a fair deal for the union.But they also said that they could not agree to a preferential deal that would cause the other unions in the transit system to demand the same, which Murphy said would cause costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars.New Jersey Transit “is facing a sobering fiscal reality," Murphy ...

A man who tried to open a cabin door and then attacked a flight attendant with a broken metal spoon on a passenger jet in 2023 has agreed to a deal that includes his release.Francisco Severo Torres, 34, agreed to plead guilty to assaulting or intimidating a flight crew member following the 2023 incident on a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Boston, prosecutors said Tuesday.The agreement, as filed in Boston federal court Monday, includes release for time served, 60 months of supervision upon release, compliance with mental health treatment, and fines and forfeiture. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life behind bars.Francisco Severo Torres during a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Boston.Lisa OlsenThe court on Tuesday ordered Torres be released to his mother, w...

Let’s be real: no one wants to worry about plug types or voltage conversion on vacation. That’s why you need a great travel adapter — with the right model, you can plug in your chargers and electronics like you normally would at home. That’s why I spoke with electronics experts: to better understand how adapters, voltages and electricity work. With their advice in mind, we selected the best travel adapters for your next big trip.What is a travel adapter?Travel adapters typically come in two shapes: plug adapters and universal adapters.In America, plug adapters have electrical prongs on one side and two or three pronged U.S. slots on the other. If you are traveling to the U.K., for example, your adapter will plug into rectangular-shaped U.K. outlets, and have slots where you can plug you...

Another ground stop at Newark Liberty International left travelers facing a new wave of cancellations and hourslong delays at the New Jersey airport on Sunday. This disruption follows weeks of chaos marked by air traffic communication issues and staffing shortages.While waiting areas, makeshift chairs and benches were emptier this weekend compared to the crowds of stranded passengers last week, outages on both Friday and Sunday left travelers grappling with the lingering effects.Akash Gupta had his travel plans completely upended on Saturday when his flight to Indianapolis was delayed six hours. He passed the time chatting with his wife over a video call and doodling on some paper.“I’m comfortable with flying, but I’m experiencing this kind of delay for the first time,” Gupta told NBC N...

Business travel’s four-year crawl out the pandemic was on track to continue this year, but the U.S. trade war has scrambled that outlook.“The big word is uncertainty,” said Suzanne Neufang, CEO of the Global Business Travel Association, which had forecast worldwide spending to surge to $1.64 trillion in 2025, up from an expected $1.48 trillion in 2024. Last year’s estimated total, if preliminary data bears out, would mark the first time the sector surpassed its pre-Covid levels.But pessimism has risen sharply amid President Donald Trump’s deep cuts to the government workforce and a dizzying range of tariffs. Now, about 29% of U.S. corporate travel managers and an equal share abroad expect business travel to decline this year due to government actions, according to a recent GBTA survey. ...

Radar screens serving Newark Liberty International Airport went black early Friday morning, raising more air traffic safety concerns at the busy New Jersey hub, federal authorities said.The outrage shortly before 4 a.m. EDT lasted only 90 seconds on a limited number of sectors, the FAA said, but the blackout is still a troubling development in the wake of revelations that controllers lost radio contact with pilots flying into the airport in recent months.The difficulties were traced to Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) network out of Philadelphia."There was a telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace," according to an FAA statement. "The ...

The FAA will embark on an ambitious three-year plan to modernize America's air traffic control systems and phase out the "outdated technologies that are unable to meet" modern demands, officials said Thursday.The federal government has been under pressure to address mounting traveler concerns in the wake of fatal crashes, ongoing delays and an embarrassing, recent revelation that the Newark airspace controllers lost all contact with pilots last week after a failure of the copper wiring that transmits radar data from New York to Philadelphia TRACON."As the National Airspace System (NAS) users increase, the FAA’s air traffic system is based on outdated technologies that are unable to meet the demands," the FAA said in a statement on Thursday."These outdated systems are showing their age —...

The air traffic in and out of Newark will be slowed on Wednesday, officials said, while insisting travel in and out of the busy hub near New York City remains "absolutely safe." The slowdown comes in the wake of stunning revelations that controllers lost radio contact with pilots flying into one of the nation’s busiest airports in recent months."The FAA has been slowing arrivals and departures at Newark Liberty International Airport due to runway construction at Newark and staffing and technology issues at Philadelphia" where the Terminal Radar Approach Control system (TRACON) guides regional air traffic, according to an FAA statement."The FAA is taking immediate steps to improve the reliability of operations at Newark Liberty International Airport. This includes accelerating technologi...