People across the country are travelling for Thanksgiving in numbers not seen since the pandemic began.

According to AAA, more than 53 million Americans are expected to travel this Thanksgiving holiday week.

Air travel is expected to be up 80% from last Thanksgiving.

However, most travers will be in cars despite the highest gas prices around Thanksgiving in eight years.

The availability of COVID-19 vaccines and families wanting to make up for missing last year’s gatherings have propelled travel to the near pre-pandemic high of 2019, according to Tracy Noble of AAA.

“You need to remember where we were last year at this time. People were still very concerned about COVID, they were quarantining at home, working from home, so it was a very different environment,” Noble says.

The Transportation Security Administration reported that over 20 million people passed through airport security checkpoints on Friday, the highest since the start of the pandemic.

The travel surge will put airlines some of which have experienced staffing shortages to the test.

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