Flights appeared to be moving more smoothly Sunday at Denver International Airport after a turkey of a travel weekend.

Around 1,500 flights were delayed and two dozen were canceled Friday and Saturday due to the winter storm which moved in on Thanksgiving.

Airlines affected by the weather included United, Southwest, SkyWest, Delta, Frontier and American.

As of noon Sunday, flights were mostly on schedule with 277 of them delayed, according to Flight Aware, the international tracking website. Flight Aware reported that two flights out of DIA had been canceled.

Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally one of the most congested times of the year to travel.

Nearly 700,000 travelers went through Denver International Airport from Wednesday through Friday.

DIA spokesperson Ashley Forest said that nearly 71,000 went through the checkpoint screening Saturday and predicted that 785,000 people would travel through DIA for the ten-day period from Nov. 17 through Nov. 27.

The Transportation Security Administration analyzed the past four years – from 2018-2022 – of checkpoint travel by tracking the number of passengers screened daily in the U.S. at its checkpoints.

In each of the past four years, the Sunday after Thanksgiving was the most crowded day to travel from the seven days before and after Thanksgiving.

The least amount of travelers came through airports on Thanksgiving day, according to the TSA’s numbers.

Travel back to pre-pandemic levels

So far, more people traveled through U.S. airports this year than any other since 2019, according to the latest numbers from the Transportation Security Administration.

Thanksgiving weekend 2023 saw nearly 1,541,000 people braving airports as compared to 1,449,703 last year. Only 561,000 people traveled in 2020, but 2019’s numbers were comparable to this holiday season.

Travelers were advised to arrive at the airport two hours before their flights and to check parking availability.

Last year was the first since the pandemic that people felt more comfortable traveling. AAA said that 54.6 million Americans traveled by road or airports, just below pre-pandemic levels, about 200,000 more than levels seen during the pandemic.

The storm system which blew through the Rockies and Plains and caused havoc for travelers at DIA pushed farther to the east in the Midwest and Great Lakes region bringing snow and rain Sunday.

Because of that, Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Boston Logan Airport experienced some delays and cancellations. Light rain was expected along the Gulf Coast, but flights were not adversely affected.

For a more guaranteed seamless experience, Denver International Airport passengers can sign up for expedited screening programs offered through TSA and CLEAR. The programs are available at DEN checkpoints.

Additionally, Forest advised that passengers learn about DEN RESERVE, a free service that allows all passengers to reserve a dedicated time slot through DEN’s Bridge TSA Security Checkpoint for their party. For more information about DEN Reserve and to make a reservation as early as three days before a flight, visit Flydenver.com/DENreserve.

Learn more about TSA PreCheck and CLEAR here.

Cheaper to drive

Meanwhile, gas prices have dipped and made the choice to drive the family to Thanksgiving festivities a whole lot cheaper.

Data at GasBuddy, a fuel tracking service, showed the national average at $3.24 a gallon, marking the cheapest Thanksgiving Day for drivers since 2020.

AAA reported that Colorado’s per-gallon price is .18 cents below the national average, with the most recent average price for regular at $3.06 per gallon.

According GasBuddy head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan, aka GasBuddyGuy, factors like weakening oil prices and flattening demand for gasoline could keep gas prices lower through the rest of the holiday season.