Traveling this weekend? Pack some patience

TAMPA - In the pouring rain, Tampa International Airport ground crews loading luggage on and off planes hustled to get the job done Wednesday. It's not easy in wet weather on one of the busiest travel days of the year.

Fortunately, weather didn't cause too many delays.

"I had American Airlines call me with any delays and they told me that everything was on time," said Jay Lilien, who was at the airport to pick up his son and daughter-in-law.

A handful of flights to the northeast and parts of Florida were delayed due to weather. According to the FAA, flights from TIA to Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, and Palm Beach were grounded until after 5 p.m. because of thunderstorms.

Airport travelers watched the status update board closely, crossing their fingers. USF student Grant Gaugler, headed to Detroit, said the flight scheduled right before his was delayed.

"Hopefully I'll get there before Thanksgiving. That's why I left a day in advance," Gaugler said.

Thanksgiving cheer is in the air. Families usually separated by thousands of miles are coming together, rain or shine.

"We'll take my son for Thanksgiving and he'll take his daughter for Thanksgiving and then we'll kind of meet up after Thanksgiving," Lilien explained. His son is married to Guy Wicker's daughter.

"But what are we going to do next year? We have to get both families together, right?" Wicker said.

AAA expects slightly more people to travel this year for the holiday. But even at the nation's busiest airports, things ran smoothly.

The Helmus family was on their way from Tampa to North Carolina. They were on time. They said that was something to certainly be thankful for on a rainy travel day.

"We got here earlier because of that, because he said there would be a lot of crowds and obviously there's not a lot of crowds," said Kathy Helmus.

Lucky for Danita Ford, her flight to see family in Philadelphia went as scheduled.

"I'm so ready. I'm ready. Turkey time!" she said.

At TIA, there were no long lines and no big crowds during the day Wednesday. In fact, the only crowd we found was a club soccer team headed back to Toronto.

"Our flight's actually at 2. We came two hours earlier. We thought it would be way more packed. We tried to beat the hustle, but we're not seeing too many people," Derek Jasper said.

The Canadian team celebrated Thanksgiving in October and, to their dismay, have to go to school Thursday.