Airport passenger volume surpasses 1M every 4 days in February
On Feb. 28, the number of passengers passing through airports nationwide surpassed 1.19M
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials announced Monday that airport checkpoint volume on average surpassed 1 million passengers every four days during February.
On the last day of the month, Feb. 28, the number of passengers passing through airports nationwide surpassed 1.19 million, according to the agency.
The uptick in numbers indicates that passengers may be gaining more confidence in air travel now that vaccines are being rolled out.
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The numbers mark a significant jump from the end of the first quarter of 2020 when demand plummeted due to widespread lockdown orders and travel restrictions. The industry was left reeling, with fewer than 100,000 people being screened per day in April.
However, as the holiday season neared, numbers started to increase. By early October, the number of passengers screened topped 1 million for the first time since COVID-19 infections began to spike last March.
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Weeks later, airports began to see a record number of passengers around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's even despite a fresh load of infections, hospitalizations, deaths and pleas from federal health officials to stay home.
On Jan 3, the daily count shot up to over 1.3 million passengers, the highest checkpoint volume since the pandemic hit.
Still, the agency only screened a total of approximately 324 million passengers throughout airport security checkpoints between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2020, which is a far cry from the 824 million total passengers screened in 2019.