The number of air travelers has been slowly increasing in recent weeks and the TSA reported a record number of people went through security checkpoints on Sunday.
The agency reports 1,574,228 passengers passed through airport security checkpoints on March 28. The Transportation Security Administration screens passengers at 440 airports across the country.
That’s the highest number of air travelers in the country since March 12, 2020, and only the third time since the coronavirus pandemic started the agency has screened more than 1.5 million passengers in a day.
The first day above 1.5 million was Sunday, March 21 and the second was Friday, March 26.
Every day since March 11 has recorded more than 1 million passengers through airport security.
JUST IN: Sundays continue to be the busiest days at @TSA checkpoints and yesterday was no exception. TSA screened 1,574,228 people yesterday, Sunday, March 28th. It was the busiest day in a little more than a year when 1,714,372 people were screened on March 12, 2020. Mask up!
— Lisa Farbstein, TSA Spokesperson (@TSA_Northeast) March 29, 2021
Whether it’s because of Spring Break or the increasing numbers of fully-vaccinated Americans, more and more people are getting out of town.
For comparison, only about 180,000 passengers were screened a year ago and 2.5 million were screened in 2019 on that date.
Air travel hit its lowest point during the pandemic on April 14, 2020 with 87,500 passengers, after many states and countries enacted travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders as the number of COVID-19 cases was becoming known.
Overall for 2020, air travel was down more than 60% from 2019.