US Airports See Busiest Sunday Since Before Coronavirus Pandemic, Just 178 Canceled Flights

The coronavirus pandemic isn’t officially over, but that didn’t stop millions of passengers who took to the air the Sunday after Thanksgiving. According to CNN, U.S. airports had their busiest day since December 26, 2019, with 2.6 million people passing through TSA checkpoints nationwide.

There were 178 canceled flights and issues with weather-related delays, but that added up to less than 1% of scheduled flights, and CNN reported that of the 6,600 delays, the average waiting time was less than one hour.

Altogether, the Transportation Security Administration reported screening 10.6 million passengers between the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and Sunday. That’s still down from the 11.7 million passengers that passed through security on the same holiday weekend in 2019.

But it marks a notable recovery from Thanksgiving 2020, when the TSA screened just 4.6 million passengers—and when the rise in ticket prices, which NBC reported were “the highest in five years,” is factored in, Thanksgiving 2022 begins to look like a solid recovery.