The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reported that on 11JUN, it screened more than two million pax in airports in the U.S. - for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.
That marked a major milestone for the travel industry with near ‘normal’ numbers of pax.
The TSA screened 2,028,961 people Friday, which is nearly four times the number screened on the same day last year, in 2020. It was 74 per cent of the travel volume of the same day the year before the pandemic, in 2019.
Before the pandemic related shut downs and restrictions were put in place, the TSA reported screening between 2 and 2.5 million people per day on average.
By the middle of MAY, TSA's average daily volume for screenings had risen to 65 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
Since FEB, airline bookings have been picking up as more Americans became vaccinated against the virus and travel restrictions such as mandatory quarantines began to ease, most notably in the United States.
The number of travellers is a strong signal for the return of travel this summer, at least in the U.S. International travel and business trips are still deeply depressed, but American domestic leisure travel is roughly back to pre-pandemic levels.
The day of lowest screening volume during the pandemic at the TSA was on 13APR 2020, when just 87,534 people were screened.
As travel picks up over this summer, the TSA is advising passengers to arrive at the airport "with sufficient time" to accommodate increased screening times.
