Between Saturday and Monday over the Christmas 2020 weekend, more than 3.5 million people crossed security checkpoints, according to the Transportation Security Administration. That’s the most in a weekend since mid-March, when COVID-19 began to close down the world. Sunday was the busiest, with 1.3 million holiday travelers. It’s the highest number seen on a single day since February. In April, there was a day when the tally didn’t even break 90,000.
All of that despite government recommendations that people not travel at all. And with Christmas that close, it’s reasonable to assume that essentially none of those travelers were planning to quarantine at their destination.
“There’s an obvious seasonal interest in travel that has manifested this year, but at a much lower volume,” Robert Mann, airline industry analyst and consultant at R.W. Mann & Company said. Last year, for reference, the same weekend saw nearly 8 million fliers.
The TSA made efforts to make the airport process as safe as possible for holiday travel, at least, with barriers, all employees wearing both face shields and masks, and extra agents to reduce wait times as far as possible.
“TSA has been working for 10 months to ensure the checkpoint screening experience is as healthy and secure as possible for the workforce and those airline passengers who choose to travel during the pandemic,” agency spokesperson R. Carter Langston said.
But with the holidays over, industry experts expect those numbers to dive again. COVID-19 cases are rising and the news is full of stories about new, more infectious strains of the virus. Happy news about the debut of several vaccines should not bump numbers up yet – protection from those will not be reliable until at least 70 percent of the population has been vaccinated for at least two months.
“The unfortunate factor is that once we get past January 6th, we’ll go back to 600,000 passengers a day,” said Mann.
While airlines appear to be weathering the storm so far, with government handouts to help, it will likely be years before they have recovered entirely.
Photo: Long security lines at Denver International Airport in a photo that was taken prior to the pandemic. Credit: Jim Lambert / Shutterstock.com