America's airports and roads are swarmed with people before the Thanksgiving ...

Swarms of people descended on America's airports and roads on Wednesday to meet up with family members for the first time since the pandemic began. 

Wednesday is gearing up to be the busiest day for travel in the country, as the Transportation Security Administration expects 20 million people to pass through its security checkpoints at airports throughout the country through Sunday.

Between Friday and Tuesday, the agency had already screened more than 10 million people, according to figures the TSA released, with 2.2 million screened on Tuesday - more than double the amount who passed through the gates in 2020, as the pandemic raged on.  

AAA also predicts 53.4 million people will travel for Thanksgiving this year - an increase of 13 percent, or 6.4 million more travelers, from last year. Of those, it says, 48.3 million will drive and 4.2 million will fly.

Another one million will travel via other means, including by rail.

'This Thanksgiving, travel will look a lot different than last year,' said Paula Twidale, the senior vice president of AAA Travel. 'Now that the borders are open and new health and safety guidelines are in place, travel is once again high on the list for Americans who are ready to reunite with their loved ones for the holidays.'

But travelers across the country are going to face sky high fuel prices and increased car rental and flight prices, as the demand for travel hits a peak from the slowdown during the coronavirus pandemic amid a global supply chain crisis and fuel spikes.

The scene at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport was chaotic early Wednesday morning, with swarms of people waiting in long lines to pass through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints and check-in to their flights.

And at New York's LaGuardia Airport, long lines were already forming at the TSA checkpoints, with some people seen bringing their pets along for the voyage as military officials and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled the area.

In Los Angeles, the airport was already starting to fill up at around 7am local time.

But it is actually Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport that is expected to be the busiest of the nation's airports, with 154,000 people departing from the hub on Wednesday, according to Hopper, an app that predicts flight prices.

Dallas Fort-Worth and Los Angeles International Airport came in its ranking for second and third busiest airports.

JFK was still in the top 10, coming in at number nine. 

TSA officials said they are prepared for the surge with 'reduced physical contact,' despite officials announcing on Monday that it has 4,200 fewer staff to deal with the increased traffic because 7 percent of employees have not yet complied with President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate and face termination.

Airlines are putting on more staff to deal with the Thanksgiving surge with many offering overtime or bonuses for employees who work the holiday, and TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein tweeted on Monday morning that the vaccine mandate would not affect airline travel. 

She wrote: 'Approximately 93 percent of @TSA employees are in compliance with today's deadline for the federal employee vaccine mandate and exemption requirements. The employee vaccine mandate will not impact holiday travel. Happy Thanksgiving!'  

'Well, TSA says that it's going to be prepared, so we have to take them at their word', AAA Senior Manager of Public Affairs Robert Sinclair Jr. told CBS New York.  

'Many airlines pay overtime or bonuses for employees to work during Thanksgiving'.

Delta has hired 8,000 new employees, including 1,500 reservation agents, Reuters reports, and Southwest hired more than 4,500 employees in the past few months.

American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue are also offering bonuses, higher pay and other incentives to ensure they have enough workers to meet the demand, and Southwest has cut its flight schedule to enhance on-time performance. It also added more employees to its customer relations department. 

No major problems had been reported as of Wednesday morning.