Holiday travel plans

Holiday travel plans

COLUMBUS

Auto club AAA anticipates the number of Ohioans traveling during the Memorial Day holiday weekend will be higher this year than last year because of several factors, including lower gas prices and economic factors that boost disposable income.

The travel organization forecasts an estimated 1.45 million Ohioans will travel at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and May 25. That would be up 4.7 percent from last year.

It estimates there will be a similar increase nationwide, with 37.2 million people taking such trips.

Most of those people are expected to hit the road, with a much-smaller percentage traveling by air for the long weekend.

Geography quiz

Q. Finland shares a border with which three countries?

A. Norway, Sweden and Russia. The remainder of the country is coast, touching on the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia, both part of the Baltic Sea.

Travelers’ gripes

Several of the nation’s largest airlines have reported record profits for the first three months of the year, thanks in part to lower fuel costs, steady travel demand and the growing use of thin-cushion seats that allow carriers to squeeze more passengers into each plane.

Although airlines have proclaimed that the new seats are just as comfortable as traditional seats, travelers disagree.

In a recent survey of 2,700 members of the travel website TripAdvisor, 65 percent of fliers who have tried the thin-cushion seats say they are less comfortable than other seats, 16 percent say the seats are more comfortable and 14 percent say they can’t tell the difference.

In fact, 77 percent of those surveyed named uncomfortable seats and limited legroom as their top travel gripe.

When TripAdvisor conducted a similar survey in 2011, only 26 percent of travelers named uncomfortable seats and tight legroom as their top complaint; passengers also groused about fees and rising airfares.

Combined dispatches