“I was almost like, if you’re not there the first day, I’m done,” she said, laughing, as she waited for him to emerge from screening.

In the early afternoon, the arrivals area at Kennedy Airport’s Terminal 1 began to fill up with people waiting for loved ones, many with balloons in hand. By the time her mother arrived, Svenja Ostwald’s two daughters had accidentally released the M and I balloons they were holding to spell out “Omi,” a German term of endearment for grandmother.

The two massive silver letters glittered near the ceiling, giving the arrivals area a more festive feeling. Ms. Ostwald, 37, who lives in Manhattan, had picked up the girls early from day care in order to greet her mother, Christiane Ecklemann, who was flying in from Frankfurt at 2:04 p.m. She estimated that if it were not for the travel restrictions, the girls, who are 5 and 3, would have seen their grandmother at least six times.

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Ms. Ostwald after she and her daughters hugged Ms. Ecklemann, 70, shortly after 3 p.m.

The distance had been difficult not only for Ms. Ostwald, who would have welcomed her mother’s help with the girls, but also, she said, for Ms. Ecklemann, who lives alone. “She was isolated, and not being able to share things was hard,” she said.

Soon after the Ostwalds reunited with Ms. Ecklemann, a small dog named Whiskey yipped beneath the escaped balloons in Terminal 1. Ye Jin, 36, had brought the dog with her to pick up her mother, Ni Fu Ying, 64, who was flying in from Berlin and who had not visited since the start of the pandemic.

Seeing her mother at last made her grateful that the United States was accepting visitors from abroad again, she said, adding that the vaccine rules did not bother her.

“It makes me feel better about her flying,” she said, gesturing to her mother. “I just wish it could have happened much sooner.”