DES MOINES, Iowa – The Thanksgiving season in Des Moines is seeing a bump in the amount of travelers over last year. From November 19-27th there are 13% more people flying though the Des Moines International Airport, than in 2022. The biggest day is Tuesday the 21st, over 5,000 people using Des Moines to travel. There will also be over 5,000 people here on Sunday, and Monday, on the return trip.

“During that timeframe of the 19th through the 27th we actually have over 400 departures to 27 different nonstop, destinations and of course all those countless connections,” said Kayla  Kovarna, spokesperson for the Des Moines International Airport. 

Kovarna said that the parking this year is also improved with more spots available.

“We do have ample parking out here at the Des Moines international airport,” said Kovarna. “You can check FlyDSM.com for that real time parking availability, we actually have our gray lot expansion project up and running so we have over 600 additional parking stalls in the Gray lot to handle that holiday traffic.”

This time of year people travel home from college, or on business, or visiting family.

“I’ll go back home and then I’ll pretty much head back here for two weeks to finals and then head back home again, said Jaxson Smith of Yuba City CA, who is a student at William Penn.

“You know I anticipated that it was gonna be a lot crazier in Phoenix so we got there like 2 1/2 hours early and we ended up kind of hanging out a little bit,” said Leslie Schaffer, of Windsor Heights. “You know and just we had plenty of time and it wasn’t nearly as crowded and and we were on time leaving, and on time arriving.”

Tyler Griffin of Denver is working over the Thanksgiving Holiday.

I’m opening a new account in Salt Lake City, I’ve got two hospitals opening up there so I’m going there to visit,” said Griffin.