BOISE, Idaho — Kara Malesich arrived at the Boise Airport on Monday afternoon after spending time with family members in Eugene, Oregon during the Thanksgiving holiday.
“It was good, my brother-in-law and my sister we are all vaccinated. We just got our boosters, we all felt safe being there and being around each other,” Malesich said.
While Malesich found her traveling experience went smoothly, for others, it had its up-downs.
“Pretty well. I was surprised except for the last part of it where my flight was delayed for five hours, that was a long wait. They didn’t tell us why,” Belva Stone said.
Stone said her flight was delayed in Las Vegas, as she was returning home after visiting her brother for the holiday.
"First time I’ve seen my brother since the pandemic, which was really nice,” Stone said.
This year, the Boise Airport expected to see about 14,000 passengers traveling by air during the Thanksgiving holiday period.
“We had a busy but smooth holiday travel season for Thanksgiving,” said Shawna Samuelson, communication and marketing manager at Boise Airport. “We don't have exact numbers yet for the passengers that we have seen. But we were anticipated about 14,000 people in and out of the airport on our peak travel days.”
On Monday, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that it had screened more than 2.4 million people on Sunday and referred to it as a ‘new pandemic high’.
BREAKING NEWS: @TSA officers screened 2,451,300 individuals on Sun, Nov 28 - a new pandemic high. Volume for the 10 days leading up to and including Sun, Nov 28 was 20.9M, about 89% of pre-pandemic levels. For the 5-day holiday weekend Wed thru Sun, volume was 10.1M. pic.twitter.com/MpizblM9O1
— TSA (@TSA) November 29, 2021
Samuelson encourages individuals be prepared if traveling throughout December.
“The best thing you can do is give yourself two hours before your flight to make sure you have plenty of time to find parking, to check in, and to get through security,” Samuelson said. “You can check our airport’s website before you start driving and on that page, we have a live feed of all of our parking lots.”
