Travel like it’s 2019: US air traffic nears pre-Covid level

Americans planning for travel during the December holidays should brace for an approximation of normality: airports teeming with passengers, just the way they were before the arrival of Covid-19.

“We see a strengthening in the airline travel industry toward pre-pandemic levels,” Transportation Security Administration chief David Pekoske said in a statement. The agency says it screened just under 21 million travelers during the 10-day Thanksgiving holiday period in November and expects volumes to remain high through the end of the year.

A total of 1.85 million passengers took to the air on Monday, according to data released separately by the TSA, more than doubling from a year earlier as the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines helped rekindle travel demand. 

While the emergence of the omicron variant triggered a fresh round of travel curbs across the globe, including in the U.S., MKM Partners analyst Conor Cunningham wrote that Kayak daily flight searches show domestic search trends were holding up so far. 

Aside from the crowds, travelers are likely to see unruly passengers. Last month, another regulator said the rate of misbehavior remains too high.