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Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is reaching and surpassing pre-pandemic traffic levels, making Memorial Day weekend and the first weekend of June the busiest since the pandemic started.
Some 7,500 passengers traveled through the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on Friday morning alone, compared to a pre-pandemic norm of 5,000, according to the Transporation Security Administration. And on Monday, 25,000 passed through the airport, setting the record since the pandemic.
Lexie Wille, 27, flew out of Austin on Saturday morning after a stressful check-in process. Upon arriving at ABIA she ran into a friend who later tipped her off to a security checkpoint with no pre-check line. She exited and reentered the terminal at a different entrance to get to the other line because "you literally couldn't walk inside the airport (it was so crowded)," she said. Once in the pre-check line, she overheard a woman say she had missed her flight to her honeymoon on Friday and was trying again.
The marked increase in passenger volume has led to hours-long wait times at both ticket counters and security checkpoints. Delays are most acute in the mornings, with peak times for TSA security lines between 5 and 7 a.m., and ABIA strongly recommends that travelers whose flights depart before 8 a.m. arrive at the airport at least three hours early.
The summer travel season is expected to be busy as more are vaccinated and are making up for an uneventful last summer.
ABIA also advises travelers with morning flights that depart after 8 a.m. to avoid arriving too early—any more than two hours—to avoid worsening congestion during peak times.
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Popular
(Tesla)
Giga Texas, the massive Tesla factory in southeast Travis County is getting even bigger.
The company filed with the city of Austin this week to expand its headquarters with a new 500,000-square-foot building. The permit application notes “GA 2 and 3 expansion,” which indicates the company will make two general assembly lines in the building.
More details about the plans for the building are unclear. The gigafactory has been focused on Model Y production since it opened in April, but the company is also aiming for Cybertruck production to kick off in mid-2023.
While there is room for expansion on the 3.3 square miles of land Tesla has, this move comes after CEO Elon Musk’s recent comments about the state of the economy and its impact on Tesla.
In a May interview with Tesla Owners Silicon Valley, Musk said the gigafactories in Berlin and Austin are “gigantic money furnaces” and said Giga Texas had manufactured only a small number of cars.
And in June, Musk sent a company wide email saying Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10%, then later tweeted salaried headcount should be fairly flat.
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(Dullnig Ranch Sales)
You’ll have to leave city limits if you’re looking for a proper ranch property like 417 Acres Shipp Lake Ranch, aptly named for its acreage. The property comes built out with three farmhouses, one of which has bedrooms and two bathrooms and two of which have two bedrooms and one bathroom. The nearly untouched property, which surrounds the 100-plus-acre Shipp Lake, has remained in the same family since the early 1900s and gives you picturesque views for the making of a dream home. In fact, the previous owners ran a water ski camp on the property.
Sitting waterside on Lake Austin, this home gives you the unique opportunity to own a piece of the lush Hill Country with views of Mount Bonnell. The 2,750-square foot, three-bedroom, four-bathroom house allows you to integrate indoor and outdoor life with large windows opening to an outdoor living area. The crown jewel is the .76-acre parcel of land that tapers off to your own lakeside resort, featuring an covered outdoor kitchen, fire pit, stone boat house to store your water sports supplies and veranda sitting at the mouth of the water, perfect for an entertainer.
Got dreams of becoming a real Texas rancher? 7814 Brown Cemetery Rd. is the perfect place to start with 40 rolling acres of land and its very own swimming hole. Just east of Austin in Manor, the modest-on-the-outside home clocks at 4,412 square feet with five bedrooms and five-and-a-half bathrooms, but there are an additional two living structures on the property. The horseshoe-shaped pond sits in the heart of the property and comes equipped with a water slide, diving board and a fishing dock.