A couple celebrated their 49th anniversary isolated in their Vienna hotel room, racking up $3,000 in extra lodging costs. An annual beach house getaway ended with 14 of the 29 guests testing positive for covid. A woman discovered she was infected after landing in Seattle for a family reunion — and decided to keep celebrating, double masked and socially distanced.
The best time to buy your holiday plane tickets
If the summer was any indication, air travel’s hustle and bustle will carry over into the end of the year.
That’s the outlook from airlines and the tourism industry going into the fall travel season and looking forward to the winter holidays.
Hopper, a travel agency that analyzes data for airfare price predictions, is seeing strong booking demand for holiday travel after an “extraordinary” summer.
The pent-up demand after two pandemic years is in part because, for some travelers, this will be the first time they visit family for the holidays since COVID-19 erupted, said Hopper spokeswoman Lindsay Schwimer.
“Last year omicron was surging around the holiday season, so people will be eager to take holiday trips this year and see family and friends,” she said.
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