Leaving for spring break? Travelers have plenty of company this year.

Signs are pointing to a busy—and in some places, potentially record-breaking—spring break travel season as Americans hit beaches, slopes and all spots in between.

And for the first time since the pandemic began, those trips may seem normal.

Mask mandates and most other pandemic-era travel requirements are no longer in place. The highest-profile federal requirement—that people wear masks on most transportation modes—was struck down last April by a federal court judge in Florida. Three years into the pandemic, the most significant mandate still in place has little bearing on Americans: Most international visitors are required to show proof they have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“It really is going to be the first spring travel season in three years that looks and feels normal to many travelers,” said Henry Harteveldt, an aviation analyst and president of Atmosphere Research.

The trade group Airlines for America, or A4A, is estimating that 158.4 million passengers will fly in March and April, or 2.6 million daily, which is slightly above 2019 levels. Airports across the country are preparing for crowds of travelers, urging people to book parking in advance and arrive hours before their flights depart. Airports in Houston and Miami are among those expecting that this will be their busiest spring break season on record.

Looking beyond spring break, the Transportation Security Administration is also preparing for a potentially record-breaking year. In January, TSA officers screened more people than in January 2019, and the agency expects the numbers will continue to rise.

“We fully expect to see an upward trend in travel volumes throughout 2023, including during the spring break period,” TSA Administrator David P. Pekoske said in a statement.

At Amtrak, ridership has returned to 84 percent of pre-pandemic levels and continues to improve.

“We expect to see an influx of customers in the coming weeks as travelers take off for spring break and the upcoming holidays,” Amtrak spokeswoman Kimberly Woods wrote in an email.

Most travelers will reach their spring break destination by vehicle. Drivers will find a bit of good news as they hit the road, with gas prices easing compared with the same period last year.

According to AAA, the average price for a gallon of regular gas is $3.44, down from $4.26 a year ago. Last year, the start of the spring break travel season came after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which triggered a spike in oil prices.

“Travel has basically reached normalized times,” said Scott Keyes, founder and chief flight expert at travel website Going.com. “Today looks almost exactly like it did this time four years ago.”

Travelers, too, say this year feels more like travel before the pandemic, with crowded airports and full flights. Their anxieties about coronavirus fears have largely abated and travel checklists have become shorter as testing requirements and pandemic restrictions are lifted.

Lauren Petrea said she remembers flying with her son to Korea in fall 2020. The pair took multiple coronavirus tests and were required to quarantine at a special facility before being allowed to reunite with relatives. They had to download an app that tracked their movements for contact tracing purposes. When Petrea, executive director of talent acquisition at one of the largest school districts in Texas, returned to Korea in December 2022, she didn’t even have to take a coronavirus test.

On a visit to the nation’s capital for spring break this month, Petrea and her husband and 12-year-old son enjoyed Smithsonian Institution museums and dinner. While she no longer worries about carrying masks, she said she still keeps plenty of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes in her purse.

“Everyone is traveling now,” she said. “The airport is crazy and security lines have gotten so long.”

Petrea said she’s also noticed that the cost of traveling—everything from plane tickets to food—has gotten significantly more expensive.

Other travelers echoed similar sentiments.

In January, when the Dickerson family flew from Kansas to New York, Susanna Dickerson packed the family’s vaccination cards because they were warned some places still required them. When the family headed to D.C. this month for spring break, those cards stayed home.

To Sandra Blake and her teenage sons, Connor and Austin, the early days of the pandemic feel like a distant memory. On a day trip to Washington from Fredericksburg, Va., Connor, 17, said things seem normal now—and the days when masks and proof of vaccination were required in many places seem like long ago.

Spring break will be a test for the nation’s air carriers, particularly Southwest Airlines, whose December meltdown has drawn scrutiny from Congress and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. It also cost the Dallas-based carrier more than $1 billion in lost ticket revenue, goodwill gestures for customers and employees, and overtime.

At a conference hosted earlier this month by JPMorgan, Southwest chief executive Bob Jordan outlined a three-part “Tactical Action Plan” to prevent a repeat of problems that forced the carrier to cancel more than 16,700 flights over 10 days.

In addition to upgrading its information technology systems, the carrier said it is taking steps to better prepare for severe weather by purchasing more de-icing trucks and increasing its number of de-icing pads at key airports. It also will purchase additional covers and heaters for aircraft engines. A shortage of equipment was one reason the carrier experienced difficulties restarting its operations late last year at Denver International Airport—a problem that quickly expanded nationwide—as a winter storm arrived.

On earnings calls earlier this year, U.S. airline executives said they are fully staffed and, in some cases, overstaffed to ensure they are able to manage potential disruptions.

Both Delta Air Lines and United Airlines said they expect travel volumes during the spring break period to be on par with 2019 levels. United said it expects that nearly 21 million customers will fly between March 10 and April 23, nearly 15 percent more than last year and about even with 2019.

Carriers say the bulk of travelers will fly in the final week of March and the first two weeks of April. United said it expects more than 4,000 flights per day, on average, while Delta said it will operate an average of 4,500 daily flights during the same time span, carrying about 25 million customers.

American Airlines and Southwest did not offer forecasts for spring break travel.

During the spring break travel period last year, airlines still were grappling with staffing shortages while rebounding from the effects of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, which emerged in November 2021. The rapid uptick in positive cases coupled with harsh winter storms made for a chaotic end-of-year experience for travelers. By February 2022, however, as the impact of omicron began to fade, travel demand rebounded.

Still, travelers endured more cancellations and delays during the spring and summer months last year, prompting Buttigieg to hold a virtual meeting last June to press airlines on steps they were taking to improve their performance.

According to A4A, the domestic airline industry is moving into this spring and summer with its largest workforce in more than two decades.

At the same time, other parts of the travel industry are struggling to find workers, said Geoff Freeman, chief executive of the U.S. Travel Association. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 1.7 million jobs in the hospitality and leisure industry remain unfilled.

“These are incredible times in the travel industry, but we are not naive enough to think that these are permanent times, and we’re concerned that we’re not necessarily making the investments, the changes that need to be made to maintain as much of this demand for travel going forward,” Freeman said.

He pointed to recent troubles with the nation’s air traffic control system, delays in the processing of visas for overseas visitors and long wait times at airports for those entering the United States as issues that must be addressed.

Air travelers are also paying more to fly this year. According to a recent report by the Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC), which analyzes travel agency ticket sales, the average price of a domestic airline ticket was $571 in February, compared with $464 last year, a 23 percent increase.

While demand for spring break travel is strong, some industry watchers cite economic concerns in saying travelers could begin to pull back. A recent report by Andrew G. Didora, an aviation analyst with BofA Global Research, found softening in airline bookings and visits to airline websites, potentially driven by headlines about troubles in the regional banking sector.

Keyes said pent-up travel demand has mostly been released, which is bringing more price sensitivity among travelers.

“Last spring and summer, you saw travelers basically saying, ‘I’ll pay any price. I’ve got the money saved up, I want to travel. I’m not putting it off,'” he said. “Well, this spring, I think you’re seeing more folks thinking they don’t have quite as much money in the bank.”