Hugs and tears of joy at JFK Airport as international travel reopens for first time in 20 months

Now arriving: tears of joy.

Kennedy Airport was filled with joyous reunions Monday as U.S. borders reopened for the first time in nearly 20 months amid the COVID-19 pandemic. International travelers, who were able to enter the U.S. thanks to proof of vaccination and a negative test, wept and embraced upon seeing friends and family with their own eyes — no FaceTime or Zoom required.

Mark Thain, 40, hugged his mother at Terminal 4 after she cleared Customs following her flight from Manchester in the United Kingdom. They hadn’t seen other in-person since March 2020, when the pandemic shut down the city — and then much of the world.

Thain, who lives in New Jersey , said he was looking forward to finally introducing his mom to her infant grandson.

“It’s the first flight out of Manchester in two years, almost,” said Thain. “She’s going to meet her grandson, he’s four months yesterday ... We’re going to hang out for 10 days and she’ll meet the baby. She’s only met him through Zoom.”

International travel into the U.S. began to halt in the early days of the pandemic. Former President Donald Trump imposed a ban on foreign nationals traveling from China on Jan. 24, 2020. On March 12 Trump took the drastic step of restricting entry by all non-U.S. citizens who spent any of the last 14 days in most of Europe.

The ban was quickly expanded to foreign travelers from the UK and Ireland — and later grew to cover additional countries like Brazil, India and South Africa.

President Biden in September announced those restrictions would roll back starting Monday. Airlines are required to validate foreign nationals’ proof of vaccination, as well as a negative coronavirus test.

Elisa Forlini, 37, who lives on the Upper East Side, joined a crowd at JFK waiting for their loved ones to exit through security. The rush of travelers caused long lines at Customs with waits of up to two hours. Forlini could barely contain her excitement after her mother’s flight landed from Milan.

“I haven’t seen her in two years,” Forlini said of her mother. “I just want to show her how I live in New York, for her to meet my friends.”

Thomas Webber, 32, from Upper Manhattan, waited for his fiancé Karina to land from Zurich. The pair are Swiss and had been apart for nearly two of the three years they’ve been engaged.

“We planned to marry last year but with the pandemic we decided to wait,” said Webber. “We booked a flight on the 8th and we were lucky. Biden said the borders would be open on the 8th.”

The rush of international tourists is a welcome sign for New York business leaders.

New York City received some 13.5 billion international visitors in 2019, who poured an estimated $47.4 billion into the city’s economy, according to a report published in April by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

Those figures plummeted in 2020, with just 2.4 million international tourists spending an estimated $4.7 billion in the city.

Gov. Hochul on Monday announced a $450 million plan intended to help tourism in New York recover to pre-pandemic levels. The plan includes a $25 million boost to promote the state’s “I LOVE NY” campaign across the country and world.

“Our tourism industry represents the essence of what sets New York apart from the rest,” said Hochul. “New York can’t come back from this pandemic unless our tourism industry and its workers come back.”