Air Travel Hits Another Post-Pandemic Milestone

Airline travel reached another big post-pandemic milestone on Monday when the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recorded its fifth consecutive day of two million or more passengers taking to the air.

It was the first time in more than 17 months that the TSA screened that many passengers. The airlines have not had such a streak of five or more days of two million-plus fliers since a six-day stretch from February 14-19 of 2020, about a month before air travel fell off dramatically due to the pandemic.

This current streak began on Thursday, July 29, with 2,127,634 passengers flying. That was followed by 2,198,585 on July 30; 2,007,413 on July 31; 2,238,462 on the first day of August; and 2,031,758 on Monday.

All totaled? 10,600,852 passengers for those five days as air travel continues its torrid return.

But we still have a long way to go before reaching 2019 levels of air travel. Consider that between May 9, 2019, and August 2, 2019, the TSA recorded 85 consecutive days of processing two million-plus passengers a day.