TSA: Holiday Air Travel Down From 2019 To 2021

BOSTON (CBS) - The TSA reports that air travel was down about 14 percent from the Sunday before Labor Day in 2019 to the Sunday before Labor Day in 2021.

This comes after the CDC advised against traveling for any unvaccinated Americans as the Delta variant continues to spread.

Still, people returned home to Logan Airport from holiday vacations, including Alex Cardozo of Pembroke. "It's nice to finally be able to travel for pleasure," he told WBZ. "It just feels like we are getting a taste of what life used to be like before the pandemic began."

Others say traveling to other parts of the country at times felt other worldly. "Far less people were wearing masks," one woman said. "We were outside most of the time, so I wasn't concerned."

Dr. Shira Doron, epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, says the state's data shows that the vast majority of COVID-19 spread is still happening in private homes. "You can't tell how everything is going to interact [after the holiday travel]," she said. "Delta, cold weather, holidays. Sometimes we go through a holiday and everything is totally fine."

Dr. Doron says some data from other countries and even parts of the U.S. show that Delta variant surges tend to recede as quick as they spike. "I think there are reasons to be optimistic," she said. "What Delta seems to do is hit hard, hit fast, and then recede fast."