Labor Day Weekend travelers pack O'Hare, Midway airports, roads

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The holiday travel rush is expected to be busier this year.

The TSA says agents screened more people at airports Thursday than they did in 2019 pre-pandemic.

O'Hare Airport is expected to see a passenger increase of 7.3%. Combined with Midway, officials said they are ready to welcome 1.6 million passengers through Thursday.

Nationwide, millions of passengers have already passed through TSA lines at airports.

New online dashboard helps flyers with flight delays and cancellations

For Jordan Rogers, it's been a long time since he's been on a plane.

"This is the first time I've flew since 2019," Rogers said. "It was an easy process. Nothing happened."

That's not the case for many, with thousands of canceled or delayed flights and lost baggage. Some passengers said the issues did cross their mind.

"It was a concern but it was pretty easy," passenger Shelby Gillespie said. "I've flown a couple times recently too and I haven't had an issue, so I guess it's nice it hasn't happened to me sucks that it's happened to other people."

Ana Jovel is traveling to Mexico for the first time with her girlfriends, and already their flight has been delayed.

"It originally was supposed to leave at 7a.m. but we're getting updates all day or all week, now it's leaving at 10," Jovel said. "We lost three hours."

There is some good news. The U.S. Department of Transportation unveiled a new tool for airline travelers dealing with delays or cancellations. The dashboard explains what service airlines will provide you if you run into issues.

It's not just in the skies, expect the roads to be busy as well, over the course of the Labor Day weekend, with 7.7 million vehicles are expected to make their way around the Illinois Tollway system.