2019 before the pandemic. only about a 3% difference. but a lot of people will really take it on the chin when it comes to costs. the average price of a gallon of gas now $3.40 nationwide, up $1.30 from this time last year. so the traffic is back, cost is back, but it is not holding people back. that is the price you have to pay. i mean, we still in a pandemic. we can t be isolated in the house again. so i d rather pay more and be with my family. i think that family is important. time spent together is important. so i guess if you want to make time and get there, you will go. last year i couldn t make it. so this year it is worth it. reporter: the transportation security administration anticipates a total of 20 million people will take to the skies for thanksgiving. we set a pandemic-era air travel
across the country because of that new federal vaccine mandate for workers. the tsa says 93% of its workers have been vaccinated, and tsa administrator david pikosky tells me that all of this preparation is leading up to this big rush. we re ready. you know, we ve looked at passenger volume projections. we work with carriers and with the airports, and collectively we re ready for the thanksgiving holiday. our goal is to make it as safe and secure and as enjoyable for people as we possibly can. reporter: let s get back to the sunday after thanksgiving. that is when we saw an all-time air travel record back in 2019. the tsa screened 2.9 million people nationwide on that day. the tsa says, we will come close to that number, but we re unlikely to clear it. christine, paula? thanks for that, pete. well, tsa promises notwithstanding there could still be some travel trouble this week from wind, rain and even snow.
without a doubt set a pandemic era air travel record. the tsa administrator tells me the record 2.2 million people screened at airports nationwide in one single day. and he said we will definitely exceed that. the tsa plans to screen 20 million people at airports across the country, during the ten-day period around the thanksgiving holiday. and the agency says it is ready for all of those people. the busiest day, the sunday after thanksgiving, when that crush of people begins to come home all at once. we plan for this for a month in advance. we have a lot of data. we work very closely with the carriers and the airports. and so we know what to anticipate. and we staff to the lines we expect to see. reporter: the point is thanksgiving travel will look nothing like it did 2020. but not quite what it was in 2019 before the pandemic. the tsa screened a record 2.9 million people at airports across the country on the sunday after thanksgiving back in 2019.
in 2019 before the pandemic. and it could be a while before we see numbers this strong again. airlines are now saying that bookings are going down, cancelations are going up, and they re all blaming it on the rise of the delta variant. really a sudden end to the summer travel surge that we have been seeing. i asked united air lones ceo about this. he says that as vaccinations go up, these numbers should normalize a little bit. but remember there s still a lot of uncertainty ahead. more travel restrictions going into place. hawaii even saying people should not travel to the state right now. travel experts do caution to us that this is typically the time that travel numbers begin to slump off a little bit. but they say that there s no doubt that the delta variant is having an impact here. the tsa said today s air travel numbers will not set a pandemic-era air travel record, which is so interesting because it s typically the last day of a holiday weekend that is the biggest. erica? int
people traveled by either car or plane over the past several days. pete muntean live at reagan national airport. so pete, many people are flying but the airlines expected this. the tickets were getting bought. so why all of the delays and cancellations? reporter: it is been so busy at airports across the country, jim. and we ll see if today sets a new pandemic air travel record. 2.2 million people fluew on airline. but now few people are staffing airplanes and that is making it harder to bounce back from maintenance issues and bad weather. look at numbers from flight aware, about 3100 flights yesterday, cancelled about 150 flights. these numbers are a lot better than what they were last week on thursday airlines in the united states canceled or delayed about 10,000 flights in total. now june was a tough month for the airlines so just put this into context. southwest airlines delayed or