It’s The Time We’ve Been Warning You About

Well, we warned you. We’ve been harping on how smart it is to reserve parking before the holidays and today’s Washington Post confirms it.

In Washington’s Dulles International and Reagan National airports, which expected a combined 1.5 million passengers between through the Monday after Thanksgiving, there was a surge of travelers, and enough parking.

But in Atlanta, Dave Hirschman, a spokesman for AirTran Airways, who picked up someone at the airport, found that both main and overflow parking lots were full. “I’ve never seen a parking situation like that before, and it’s not even peak period.”

The three busiest air-travel days are expected to be next Wednesday, and the Sunday and Monday after Thanksgiving, when the number of daily passengers is expected to exceed 2.5 million, the Washington, D.C.-based Air Transport Association said

Overall, air travel is expected to be up 4 percent over last year. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is expecting a 6 percent increase over the holiday period, said spokesman Perry Cooper, with the number of passengers passing through expected to approach the average 100,000 per day that Sea-Tac saw this summer.