Local travel agencies feeling the impact of the pandemic

SOUTH BEND, Ind.--- Travel agencies across Michiana are dealing with the continued fallout of the COVID pandemic. Agents say they're continuing to see flight cancellations because of the pandemic.

"It’s been a very difficult time," said Michele Boyd, President of Signal Travel and Tours in Niles. "We had a great going in to 2020 but we’ve had to process many many cancellations."

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there have been 292,702 flight cancellations through September of this year. That's a more than 200 percent increase in cancellations from all of 2019 where just 139,052 flights were cancelled. 

"People were scheduling in advance anticipating that we’d be able to travel by now," said Boyd. "As you know the cruises are still not traveling."

Boyd does say that the rollout of Coronavirus Vaccines is already having a huge impact on the travel industry over the next two years.

"We are booking in to 2021, more so the last half of 2021 than the first half and 2022 looks very good," said Boyd. "It looks better than 2019 which was a record year in travel."