Passenger volume at Philadelphia International Airport over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday was up, reaching 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels in the same time period, writes Laura Smythe for Philadelphia Business Journal.

PHL is forecasting 925,699 passengers from Dec. 22 to Jan. 4, down only 20 percent from the 1.5 million that flew over the holidays from Philadelphia back in 2019.

In that same two-week stretch in the first year of COVID-19, only 583,099 passengers passed through the airport.

Final passenger figures will come in the first week of February when all airlines out of the airport report their numbers. 

December into January passenger numbers continued a building trend seen over the Thanksgiving holiday at PHL. Passenger volume Nov. 20-29 was double what it was in 2020.

The airport anticipates a busier 2022 overall, especially now that PHL’s transatlantic flights are set to resume at the end of March.

Airlines at PHL are either resuming or launching 21 routes during the first and second quarters of 2022.

Spirit Airlines is introducing seven new nonstop routes across the US and the Caribbean, including to Nashville and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. 

Read more at Philadelphia Business Journal about the uptick in airline passengers.