Traffic to LAX on Thanksgiving Day

[Lyn-CA]

I'm trying to get an idea of how the traffic will be on Thanksgiving Day. We have a reservation for the Thanksgiving buffet at the Disneyland Hotel at noon. In order to fit this in, we have to fly out of LAX because John Wayne and Long Beach airports have limited flights on that day and they are in the early afternoon. We have our flight out of LAX at 7:30 PM. How much time should we allow to drive to LAX?

Since it is the holiday itself, will the traffic be lighter than usual or will there no difference?

TIA as always.

 

[Darkbeer1]

I presume domestic....

And good news, Thanksgiving day tends to be light in travel.

So let's go backwards...

Flight at 7:30 PM, so I would want to be in line checking in luggage and TSA at LAX by 6 PM.

You said "Drive", so I presume you will have a rental car. So we need to address the return.

I would drive to your specific terminal (and there are 9 of them) at LAX and drop off everyone and all the luggage, and then just the driver goes to return the car and take the shuttle (they are all off-property). So let's say 5:30 for a decent arrival time.

Add to that about an hour drive (I prefer the 5 north to 91 west to 605 north to 105 west option, as most of it is using carpool lanes.) (In heavy traffic it can go up to 2 hours or more).

So now we are looking at between 4 and 4:30 PM leaving your hotel, all packed up and ready to hit the road.

Have a great trip!

 

[SMD]

I'm north of LAX, but traffic can be bad in the immediate area of LAX on Thanksgiving. I've flown out after an early dinner and I've driven family to the airport after dinner. The airport police control the flow of traffic into the airport, and they often put up checkpoints on holidays. 4:30 is a good time to leave if you're not returning a rental car. If you're taking a shuttle, they'll offer advice based on your flight time.