Forecasters promise a gradual warmup over the next few days, but this prolonged cold spell has many Iowans dreaming about Spring Break vacations in distant, sunny climates.
Kyle Potter, with ThriftyTraveler.com, says overall air travel remains low due to the COVID-19 pandemic and he predicts it’ll likely be a slow climb back to normalcy.
“The only thing we can say for sure is it’s going to take time,” Potter says. “They don’t expect travel numbers to return to 2019 levels until 2024. I don’t think that’s out of the realm of possibility but all I can say is it is going to take some time.”
Potter says business travel and international travel will be the last to recover. He says one big question hanging over the airline industry is whether the Biden administration will implement a negative COVID test requirement for domestic travel.
“Airline CEOs have come out this week and practically begged the Biden Administration not to do this,” Potter says, “warning that it would be obviously damaging to their business.”
Potter expects we’ll learn more about the proposal from the Biden administration in the next few weeks.