SAINT PAUL, Minn. — We are less than a week from Christmas and airports across the country are preparing for the busy holiday rush.
At Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, officials are expecting to see more than 40,000 travelers a day during these final days before Christmas.
“Over Thanksgiving this year we saw about a 10% growth over last year, and so we’re expecting that growth pattern to continue here over the holidays,” MSP spokesperson Jeff Lea said.
“We’re not quite back to pre-pandemic levels. Year-to-date we are within 10% of where we were for our record year in 2019.”
If you're traveling this week, Lea recommends booking your parking spot now using MSP’s website.
"It does a couple things, one is you know you have a space when you get here, and two, you can save off the drive-up rate,” Lea said.
And Travelers can save a few dollars a day by reserving their parking spot online. They can also save time by checking the wait times at both security checkpoints at Terminal One.
“Both checkpoints can access all gates, so you can use either checkpoint to get where you need to go,” Lea explained.
Tuesday afternoon, one security checkpoint had an average wait time of 20 minutes, whereas the other checkpoint had an average wait time of less than five minutes, so checking the wait times can make a big difference.
Airport officials also moved the rideshare parking lot for Uber and Lyft down a level so they could add more spots.
The rideshare lot is now underneath a roof, so travelers are now shielded from the snow and rain.
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