Holiday travelers sail through Twin Cities airport with ease

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- One of the busiest travel days of the year turned out to be smooth sailing for travelers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

"Frankly, it hasn't been the challenge we thought it would be," said Patrick Hogan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission. "Everything has gone smoothly."

Typically, there are 1,400 flights in and out of the airport each day. That number was about 10 percent higher Sunday, he said.

"It's been surprisingly easy," said Dimitry Luzhansky, who with his wife, Maria, traveled from Philadelphia. "I expected much worse."

Several travelers said that TV reports trumpeting the high-volume traffic through the airport on the last day of the Thanksgiving weekend had given them pause.

"I flew out of here Thursday, Thanksgiving, and it seemed busier than today," said Stephanie Jaeger, of Lincoln, Neb., who took a connecting flight to Omaha. "Hey, today's not bad at all."

Hogan attributed the ease to several things. The airport added seven security lines and Northwest Airlines, which controls about 80 percent of the airport's gates, added two additional baggage check-in locations.

Airlines also brought in extra staff, and security workers were added earlier this month through the Transportation Safety Administration.

"What a difference between today and last year at this time, on the first big travel day after 9/11," Hogan said. "Now we've had a year to add security and get the process down."

Both airline and airport personnel were making sure that travelers -- more than 100,000 of them, arriving and departing Sunday -- got to the correct lines with the shortest wait.

"The goal was to get people through in 10 minutes. With few exceptions, I think we've done it," Hogan said.