In the annual pilgrimage to Thanksgiving celebrations this week more than 38 million Americans utilize trains, planes and automobiles, with the vast majority choosing to hit the highway.

According to AAA, more than 33 million of those holiday travelers plan to go by car, a 2.1-percent increase from last year. In Southern California alone, 85 percent of the 2.19 million holiday travelers (1.87 million) are expected to take to the roadways.

While that maybe bad news for the nation’s airlines, it’s good news for area automotive service and repair businesses.

Sunset Auto Center in Lompoc last week scheduled additional service technicians to handle the extra business.

“We had a record week last week. We’ve been writing 40 to 45 service orders a day,” said service writer Daniel Guerrero. “Our techs have been staying late, so we’ve been pretty busy.”

Rizzoli’s Automotive in Santa Maria has been in business for 33 years and is familiar with the traditional pre-holiday surge in business.

“Some jobs have been specifically for holiday travel,” said service consultant Frank Waite. “They want to make sure it’s in good, roadworthy condition before hitting the road.”

Waite said there is typically a surge in business right before Thanksgiving and then a slow-down through the rest of the year. Rizzoli’s is doing a lot of oil changes, coolant checks and similar preventative maintenance.

“Statistics show people are driving more and not flying as much, so that’s good for business,” added Jim Rizzoli, company president.

Nationwide, holiday air travel is expected to continue to drop. According to AAA, approximately 2.3 million people are expected to fly to their holiday destination, a 6.7-percent drop from a year ago. Statewide, 267,000 are expected to fly, a 1 percent drop from a year ago, but a 60-percent drop from the 2007 high-water mark.

Locally, airlines aren’t planning for a large increase or decrease in traffic. Allegiant Air, which flies out of Santa Maria Public Airport, isn’t planning any more or fewer flights until Christmas, according to Sabrina LoPiccolo, public relations manager.

“Customer demand for Thanksgiving is more in line with other years,” said LoPiccolo, who added the company is experiencing increased advanced booking beginning around Christmas.

Allegiant schedules one arrival and departure flight per day from Santa Maria to its hub in Las Vegas.

United Express is also not planning any additional flights over the holiday.

Rail travel is expected to experience a 70 percent increase over the holiday. Amtrak will add additional passenger cars to its San Joaquin, Pacific Surfliner and Capitol Corridor routes.

The San Joaquin and Capitol routes will add up to 580 more seats per run. Reservations for the Pacific Surfliner trains, which run from San Luis Obispo to San Diego, will be required through Nov. 30.

More than 660,000 passengers rode Amtrak over the 2008 Thanksgiving holiday.

While there aren’t as many people leaving the area for the holidays, the Central Coast is becoming a holiday destination. The area was listed behind Las Vegas, San Diego, San Francisco and Arizona as one of the top five Memorial Day destinations for Southern Californians in 2009.

Gary Newhall, Santa Maria and Lompoc branch manager for AAA, said the slowing economy has people considering closer, more conservative vacation plans.

 “People are just watching what they’re doing with their money. People still want to get out. It’s still important to vacation,” he said.

More people making shorter road trips for Thanksgiving means more headaches for the California Highway Patrol.

Starting at 6 p.m. today and running through midnight Nov. 29, the CHP will be implementing its annual Thanksgiving maximum enforcement period (MEP). During that stretch all available officers will be out on the road.

Maximum deployment is nothing new to patrol officers on the Central Coast. Rob Wallace, with the Santa Maria CHP office, said because they run 12-hour shifts, his office has all available officers on the road anyway. But even the local office will have a few more patrolmen on the roads.

Thanks to grant funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety, two additional officers will be deployed on area roads, Wallace said.

Thirty-three people were killed on California roadways during the Thanksgiving holiday last year. The CHP handled 20 of those cases and of those, 35 percent didn’t utilize seat belts.

Wallace said a little more preparation and patience is vital during the holiday season.

“The increase in traffic congestion can cause drivers to be a bit impatient and take risks they don’t normally take,” Wallace said. “With increased traffic congestion the violations we typically see are following too close and unsafe lane changes.

“(Drivers) need to maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front of them because they can’t see the traffic hazards up ahead. They need to maintain a safe distance.”