Labor Day travel in DC region; deadly Amazon plane crash | TOP STORIES

While the unofficial end of summer had a lot of people heading out of town for the last hurrah, many of them will be making their way back home today. That's right and Melanie Alnwick joining us live. She's out of Dulles Airport this morning with a look at some of that Labor Day travel and it's been pretty good so far this morning. Mel, anything picking up at this time? Yeah, everything's going pretty smoothly as far as we can see and as far as what passengers are telling us. Volume's starting to pick up a little bit now. We're seeing more flights taking off in the seven o'clock, eight o'clock and nine o'clock hours but you know one thing that people are definitely commenting on this year is the higher prices. According to AAA, airfare prices are up, gas prices are up, hotel prices are up as well. Airports of course very busy with outbound passengers on Thursday and Friday. TSA said it expects to screen about 17 million passengers from the holiday period of September 3rd to September 9th. Today will be the third busiest day with approximately 2.69 million passengers screened. Fuel prices are hitting passengers travel budgets. AAA says the price for round-trip airfare to the most popular domestic destinations is up 20% from Labor Day last year. Average round-trip airfare $790. Travelers tell me they have definitely noticed. Only because I was committed to the trip but had I not been so committed I wouldn't have gone and I have the ability to work overtime so I've been working a lot of overtime in order to make the trip. It was higher than I expected but you know you only live once and we were able I was able to get something that was pretty more or less reasonable. Airfare prices I think are somewhere fair I want to say but not like super cheap and not too expensive but somewhere okay yeah although I want to see a little cheaper prices but gas prices is horrible no odds. The national average now $4.14 a gallon it has never before topped $4 per gallon on Labor Day. The prior Labor Day record of $3.82 was set back in 2012. Now one big popular destination of course in our area are the local beaches. Beach traffic expected to be especially heavy with it being an easy reach and beautiful weekend weather. The Maryland Transportation Authority says the before 10 a.m. or after 10 p.m. two-way operations will be in effect as needed. As for drivers elsewhere definitely be prepared for some traffic congestion later this afternoon. AAA says the heaviest time is going to be between 2 this afternoon and 5 this early evening. We'll send it back to you in the studio. All right thanks so much Mel. Today is Labor Day in fact and you have what's actually open and here's a breakdown if you have some errands to run. Government offices, banks, post offices and the stock market all closed but if you need to pick up some items most major retailers and grocery stores will be open. The only notable exception that we could find was Costco. Also right here at home libraries will be closed and Metro will run on a Sunday schedule. Glad you mentioned Costco because that's someplace that I would have probably gone to so good to know they are closed today. Meantime the newest juvenile curfew zone for the district is still in effect today and it will expire tonight at 11 p.m. That curfew applies to areas that are near the U Street Corridor and Banneker Rec Center in Northwest. It does affect people that are under the age of 18. Well after nine weeks of detours, shuttle buses and a lot of extra commuting time there's a big change for red liners this morning. That's right three Metro stations in Montgomery County are back open. Our Maureen Umay here with what riders need to know and Mo so many people are excited to hear this news today. I know they have been excited because after the mess of the day last nine weeks I know they said hey get this thing going and it certainly has. The Bethesda Medical Center and Grosvenor Strathmore Metro stations they have reopened this morning after being closed since early July for major construction. Now the shutdown stopped red line trains between North Bethesda and Friendship Heights for nine weeks. During that time crews worked on several major projects at Bethesda. They built a new mezzanine that will eventually connect Metro riders to the new purple line. Grosvenor Strathmore got a major platform rehab that included new lighting, some tile and other improvements. Crews also did some structural work along the elevated track between Grosvenor Strathmore and Medical Center. The Metro says the work was completed on time. It was also on budget but getting here wasn't always easy for riders. For much of the summer they had to trade their usual train ride for shuttle buses and then some told us the transition took some getting used to. I enjoyed the fact that it's coming to an end now. It's kind of annoying to get off, get on the bus, go to your destination, get back off if you have to go all the way up past North Bethesda. It's been challenging having the the shutdown of several stops so it's definitely made it harder to get in and out of the city. So no more shuttle buses for red line riders along that closed stretch but one important note if you're riding Metro today we've already told you this but it is Labor Day so Metro is operating on a Sunday schedule from six this morning until midnight and while the space of the work at Bethesda is complete the bigger project still is not. That new mezzanine is being built for the future purple line connection which is expected to begin service in late 2027. Guys. All right Maureen, thank you so much. A live view of this Rehoboth that we're seeing now. All our area beaches. Looks nice out there. Look great at the beaches yesterday and it should turn into a decent day at the beach later this afternoon. Kind of a partly sunny day so yeah it'll be nice and pleasant. Locally we look fantastic. Nice day. Temps in the low 80s by afternoon. Lower humidity and you know just loving the late summer feel out there. Without a lot of humidity and without the storm chances we will be in good shape here for being outside and out and about later this afternoon. 61 Dulles. 65 at Reagan National this morning. Nice to have those numbers get back below 70 for a change and we're in a really nice pattern here for a couple days. It will start to warm up tomorrow. We'll be back near 90 by Wednesday and Thursday but let's celebrate a really really nice afternoon with temperatures in the low to mid 80s and hints of things to come over the next couple weeks as fall is only a few weeks away. Quiet morning, quiet afternoon. Our flow is out of the north and west and we'll keep that story going later this afternoon. Nice 83 degrees. Okay before I go to traffic a little fan club action and let's see we got Donna here in Hughesville checking in. Oh I see we're upside down. Watching Fox 5 to see if I need an umbrella. Oh watching me to see if you need an umbrella there. I appreciate that Donna. I think you are good to go and we're all systems go for a nice morning outside so enjoy a beautiful day. Annette wishing my girlfriend from way back a happy oh we got a happy 50th. 50 looks good on you. 50 looks great on you. May God bless you with many more years and many more blessings. Lots of hearts there. We love it Annette. Scan me in the upper right hand corner. Let's celebrate you. Send us your pictures for my zip trip if you have them. Oh yeah. Yeah our celebrations with all of us down at National Harbor on Friday. That was a big celebration. Very fun. We'll take a look here at some Labor Day reversible lanes. This is the District Department of Transportation suspending reversible lane operations today. Canal Road between Chambridge Road and Foxtel Road Northwest. Rock Creek Parkway. We're looking at 16th Street between Irving Street and Arkansas Avenue Northwest. Clair Barton Parkway operating on holiday mode as well with two-way traffic. So just keep that in mind. Reversible lanes things like that switching in several areas. 270 headed south completely clear in about 28 minutes. Outer loop of the beltway 95 across the 270. Looks great for your top set at about eight minutes. Makiya. All right thanks Annie Mae. I'm Makiya Turner with this Fox 5 news alert. At least 25 people are dead after a school bus plunges about 100 feet into a ravine in Cape Verde. The horrific scene happening Saturday night in Fogo Island. Officials say the bus carrying mostly teenagers was returning from a field trip when it crashed. Rescuers say some passengers were ejected while others were trapped inside of the bus. Officials say at least 30 people were on board at the time of that crash. Meanwhile the council has declared two days of national mourning following the tragedy. The cause remains under investigation. Marissa. Makiya the FAA and the NTSB are investigating a crash involving an Amazon plane at Miami International Airport. That crash killed five people. The cargo jet was traveling from San Juan Puerto Rico when it skid off the runway at the airport hitting several cars before bursting into flames. This all happening yesterday afternoon. For decades the plane was used as a passenger airliner before it was refitted as a cargo plane. A ground stop was issued for the airport with some reports indicating flights over the holiday weekend were delayed for up to six hours.