By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. airports and airlines are anticipating a large number of tourists ahead of Thanksgiving. They hope the weather forecast stays calm so that millions of Americans can travel to the country.

According to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, Friday was the busiest day for air travel since March 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic. It screened 2.24 Million travelers.

TSA estimates that it will screen approximately 20,000,000 passengers for Thanksgiving 2019, compared with 26 million people in 2019

TSA Administrator David Pekoske said that “We’re ready,” to reporters at Washington Reagan National Airport on Friday. “We’ll be able manage the volume of passengers we anticipate.”

Many Americans now travel for holidays because of rising vaccination rates after having missed family events in November and December.

AAA, a travel group, predicts that 53.4 million people will travel to Thanksgiving. This is 13% more than 2020. Most travelers will be traveling by car. Although this is an increase from the 47.1million who traveled by car last year, it still falls below the 49.9 million for 2019.

Travelers who drive cars will face gasoline prices that are near their highest level since 2014. This will make it more difficult to plan holiday travel.

Patrick De Haan from GasBuddy is the head of petroleum analysis. He said that some Americans are reacting to rising prices by closing their doors and staying off the roads.

Employees who travel during the holidays are experiencing increased staffing levels and bonuses.

Delta Air Lines (NYSE) announced that they expect to fly 5.6 Million passengers starting Friday, Nov. 30, almost 300% more than 2020’s 2,2 million Delta passengers. However, this is still less than 2019’s 6.3M passengers.

United Airlines reported that they anticipate more than 4 million travelers during Thanksgiving, which represents 88% to 2019 volume.

Skift was informed last week by United Chief Executive Scott Kirby, (NYSE:). Kirby said he has a lot confidence in United’s ability and schedule to fly holidays. Kirby stated that “We have given ourselves an error margin.”

He said problems could spread and that if you don’t take care it could lead to a breakdown.

In recent weeks, other airlines were subject to weather problems that resulted in many cancellations per day for several days.

United stated that it would add 700 domestic flights to Thanksgiving Week and will fly 87% in November of its domestic 2019 schedule.