Few delays, cancellations at airports as summer travel season wraps up on Chicago Labor Day weekend

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The summer travel season is coming to a close with crowded airports, but few delays or cancelations, as of Monday morning.

The weather this weekend across the country made for mostly smooth sailing.

Labor Day is typically the last chance for families to get away before the grind of the school year sets in.

Monday is the busiest day to travel on this Labor Day holiday weekend, but, on Monday morning, passengers said it hadn't been that bad at O'Hare.

After a very busy Labor Day Monday morning O'Hare airport rush, things had calmed down quite a bit just a few hours later.

"I figured, after Friday, I saw so many people at the airport at that particular time. People might be staying a day extra, it might be bad tomorrow. I didn't expect it to be too busy today," traveler Shirley Weems said.

This is the third busiest travel holiday of the year, with an estimated 1.6 million travelers coming through Chicago's airports.

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Many passengers knew the airport would be busy, and planned accordingly.

"It wasn't bad when I got here, but I got here really early in the morning, like 6 in the morning," traveler Ryan Hatswell said.

Katy Brennan agreed.

"It's been great; there was nobody on the roads. Got right in, took us an hour to get here; it was really nice," she said.

Airport officials even warned of a 7% passenger increase at O'Hare and a 1% increase at Midway, and advised passengers to come early to avoid any travel headaches.

This holiday is a test for airlines that saw canceled flights and stranded travelers during the prime summer vacation season.

"It was supposed (to be) awful; it was supposed to be awful at O'Hare. That's all they were saying; it was supposed to be recordly awful, but look at it. It's easy. Yeah, it will probably be worse later," traveler Taylor Zwick said.

Nationwide, the Transportation Security Administration expects to screen more than 14 million passengers through this Wednesday, which is an 11% increase over last year.

There is some good news for passengers: Travel experts say the rate of canceled flights is down about 19% from the summer months.

Of course, many travelers are also hitting the roads.

The analytics company INRIX predicted a 25% increase in congestion on Interstate 94 in and around Chicago over the weekend.

If you want to avoid packed roadways, AAA expects traffic to ease up after 7 p.m.