US holiday air travel week opens briskly

Americans have begun hitting the roads and skies in large numbers in advance of Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday as weather so far looks favorable for travel plans. On Sunday, the TSA screened 2.21m US air passengers, the fourth consecutive day with checkpoint volume topping 2m. The TSA said Friday was the single busiest air travel day since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, with 2.24m travelers screened. AccuWeather said Monday that “a largely quiet weather pattern should prevent widespread travel worries from the weather ahead of Thanksgiving.” The weather forecaster added that “some Americans could still face minor weather-related delays during one of the busiest travel periods of the year - and weather for the trip home may be a different story.” As vaccination rates have risen, many Americans are traveling for the holidays after skipping family gatherings last November and December. Travel group AAA forecasts 53.4m people will travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, up 13% from 2020, with most travelers going by car. About 48.3m Thanksgiving travelers are expected to go by car, up from 47.1m last year, but still below 2019’s 49.9m. TSA expects to screen about 20m air passengers during the busy Thanksgiving travel period, compared with nearly 26m in the same period in 2019. “We are ready,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske told reporters on Friday at Washington Reagan National Airport. “We will be able to handle the passenger volumes that we anticipate seeing.” <br/>