DES MOINES, Iowa — The Des Moines International Airport is a busy place this holiday season. It will be very busy between now and January 4th. Close to 300 flights are anticipated with around 79,000 passengers coming and going from Des Moines.

“Christmas travel, this is the start of the busy, so we’ll see a lot of travelers coming in today, the Friday before Christmas,” said Sarah Hoodjer, of the Des Moines International Airport. “The busy-ness is going to continue until about January 4th, because you got your New Year’s Eve traffic coming out. You have your Christmas traffic coming back in.”

During the busy holidays, the type of traveler also changes.

“What we have going on right now is we have a lot of your leisure travelers instead of your business travelers,” said Hoodjer. “That means our economy lots are going to fill up, the garage is probably going to remain a little emptier than what people are used to seeing.”

People also welcomed home family members. Damien Danan of Des Moines welcomed home his son, Jonathan, who was on leave from the Army.

Dave and Karen Teinen of Ankeny were at the airport to welcome their son, Elliot, back home from Arizona.

“We haven’t seen him for a while,” said Dave. “He’s always excited to get home to the Midwest and the seasons, we enjoy the winter time where we can go down and visit, but yeah, always good to get him home.”

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