U.S. travelers over the year-end holiday season will surge to a record 100.5 million as cheap fuel makes trips more affordable.
About 91.3 million people will drive to holiday destinations 50 miles (80 kilometers) or more from home, an increase of 1.4% over last year, according to Heathrow, Florida-based AAA, a national federation of motor clubs. Air travel is forecast to increase 0.7% to 5.8 million passengers.
Consumers are benefiting from a 66% drop in West Texas Intermediate crude over the past 18 months that has encouraged refiners to produce record amounts of fuel. The average price of regular U.S. gasoline is poised to drop below $2 a gallon at the pump by Christmas, according to AAA. That would be the first time at that level since March 2009.
Americans have saved about $100 billion on fuel this year, which comes to more than $350 a person, according to Michael Green, a spokesman in Washington for AAA. The drop in gasoline prices has coincided with an increase in demand, which rose to the highest level since August, the Energy Information Administration said Dec. 9.
U.S. refineries produced 9.84 million barrels a day of the motor fuel in October, an all-time high for the month, the American Petroleum Institute said Nov. 19. Gasoline inventories on Nov. 20 were the highest for this time of year since 1990, Energy Information Administration data show.
