CHICAGO, Illinois: United Airlines said that during the Thanksgiving travel period, it expects to carry 5.5 million passengers, some 12 percent over the same period in 2021.

The airline said it will operate more than 3,700 flights per day from 18th to 30th November, forecasting that it will carry about as many passengers over the holiday as the pre-pandemic period in 2019.

United also predicts that the Sunday after Thanksgiving on 27th November will be its busiest travel day since before the pandemic, anticipating more than 460,000 passengers, adding that it had allocated an additional 275 extra flights on that day to help accommodate demand.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Transportation Department said that August air passenger traffic was still down 8.6 percent from pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels at 76.6 million passengers, compared with 83.8 million in August 2019.