Additional Airline Means More Holiday Travel From Sioux Gateway

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With the holiday travel season underway, nearly 27 million will fly for Thanksgiving and folks are searching for competitive fares.

Adding a new airline back in October at the Sioux Gateway has not only allowed Siouxlanders to travel easier but also given folks more variety than in years past.

The numbers have jumped and folks are taking advantage.

Sioux Gateway has been without two airlines since September of 2001.

Adding Frontier has given folks another option to their destinations, something they may have had to drive to Omaha or Sioux Falls to do before.

Frontier added flights to three locations this past October. Wichita, Kansas, Rapid City, South Dakota and of course here.
But Sioux Gateway has booked more than those two airports combined.

Rick McElroy, Sioux Gateway Airport Director says, "The inplanements are up not only for Frontier but also for Northwest Airlines. I believe the competition has been good. For the month of October, inplanements were up about one hundred twenty-six percent over October of last year."

Last October just over two thousand six hundred people flew and this October six thousand people took to the skies.

Last Thanksgiving six hundred folks compared to one thousand five hundred so far this year.

The airport director also says to check Sioux Gateway's flights because the prices are competitive and change daily.
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And if flying isn't in your holiday travels then driving might be.

High gas prices certainly aren't discouraging drivers from hitting the road this holiday season.

Over 31 million people are expected to hit the roads for Thanksgiving and unfortunately, not all of them will get home safely.

Woodbury County chief deputy Greg Logan has some helpful hints.

First of all there's only a slight chance of snow here this week but, as people drive out of our area they might hit some snow.

Nowadays, most people have cell phones, and they think that's all they need in an emergency. But you can't always count on it to work, especially in a storm.

The combination of more people on the road, and bad weather can make the roads dangerous even deadly this time of year.

According to triple A, about 80 percent of travelers will travel by car even though the cost of fuel is up 90 cents from last year.