As the summer holiday travel season is in full swing, U.S. airports are getting quite busy these days. In fact, they're busier than ever according to figures released by the Transport Security Administration (TSA). Sunday, June 23 even broke the all-time record for most people screened at U.S. airports, with 2.99 million people passing through TSA safety checks. That's only the tip of the iceberg, tough. According the TSA, 8 of the 10 busiest travel days ever at U.S. airports have occurred in the past month and more records are expected for the Independence Day travel period. "We expect this summer to be our busiest ever and summer travel usually peaks over the Independence Day holiday," TSA administrator David Pekoske said in a statement.
As our chart shows, daily passenger throughput at U.S. airports has consistently exceeded pre-pandemic levels this year after roughly matching 2019 traffic in 2023. With an average of 2.73 million passengers per day passing through TSA checkpoints, June 2024 was the busiest month ever at U.S. airports and there are no signs of Americans' appetite for air travel waning in July.
Following an abysmal 2020, when airport throughput fell below one million passengers per day, flight traffic picked up noticeably in the second quarter of 2021, as the vaccine rollout proceeded rapidly. Passenger throughput started climbing steadily, with TSA safety checks exceeding two million in a single day for the first time in the Covid era on June 11, 2021. Throughout the busy summer season, the daily average hovered around the two million mark, trailing 2019 passenger numbers by roughly 500,000 a day on average. By the end of 2021, the gap had narrowed to 350,000-400,000 before gradually climbing closer to pre-pandemic levels throughout 2022.
Prior to the pandemic, daily passenger volumes of 2+ million were the norm rather than the exception. At the onset of the pandemic, daily passenger throughput fell as low as 100,000 in April 2020, before slowly climbing back to its current level. In 2023, the TSA performed an average of 2.35 million safety checks per day, compared to 925,000 in 2020 and 2.32 million in 2019. Through June 29 of this year, average daily passenger traffic stands at 2.43 million for this year.
