A mostly smooth start to the Thanksgiving travel rush bodes well for the rest of the hectic holiday season for airline passengers, reflecting efforts by carriers, airports and government officials to avoid the chronic delays that plagued the U.S. during the summer, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Barring weather disruptions or other unexpected complications, steps to prepare for the pre-Thanksgiving rush may help keep travelers moving during the weekend and through New Year’s Day. Airlines, airports and air-traffic and security operators said they are running fully staffed check-in desks, parking lots, information booths, control towers and screening points. Additional employees are standing by and might be called to work if trouble erupts.

The extra effort, while costly, was evident during Wednesday’s travel rush. “Operations went very well, and we’ll be fully staffed and prepared to handle the flow for the rest of the holidays,” said Carrie Harmon, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency responsible for passenger checkpoints.

The agency’s goal was to keep wait times at the busiest security checkpoints to fewer than 30 minutes. But at airports in some large hub airports, including Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, and Denver, waits rarely surpassed 15 minutes.

“Nothing [was] out of the ordinary,” said a spokesman for JetBlue Airways Corp., even though the carrier’s planes were 90% full and the skies around its New York base foggy. Delta Air Lines Inc., of Atlanta, described travel conditions as “fantastic so far,” despite a few flight cancellations because of bad weather, a spokeswoman said. The few reported weather-related delays occurred mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.

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