Air travel on Sunday after Thanksgiving breaks pandemic record

Elisha Fieldstadt
·1 min read

Sunday was the busiest air travel day since the start of the pandemic, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

As many made their way home after Thanksgiving, more than 2.45 million people were screened in airports on Nov. 28, tweeted TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein. Just over 1 million people traveled by air on the equivalent day in 2020, according to a TSA database.

That number surpassed the 2.3 million people who passed through airport screenings on Wednesday, as droves of people made their way to their holiday destinations.

Farbstein said 20.9 million traveled by air during the 10 days leading up to and including Nov. 28, which brings the volume to 89 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Air travel plummeted to coronavirus lows in April 2020. But AAA predicted this year that Thanksgiving air and road travel would be up 13 percent from the same time last year, within 5 percent of pre-pandemic levels

The TSA has hired 6,000 officers this year and has enough staff to deal with the increase in passenger volumes, Lorie Dankers, a TSA spokesperson, told Reuters last week.

Still, the TSA and airlines are warning people to get to airports early in case of long lines.