A new surge in COVID-19 cases is threatening to put a damper on the frail recovery of U.S. air travel. Southwest Airlines became the first major carrier to sound the alarm this week, lowering its outlook for the third quarter due to a slowdown in bookings and an increase in cancellations.
Following an abysmal 2020, where passengers remained hesitant to return to the skies, flight traffic picked up noticeably in the second quarter of 2021, as the vaccine rollout proceeded rapidly. According to data from the Transport Security Administration, passenger throughput at U.S. airports started climbing steadily, with TSA safety checks exceeding two million in a single day for the first time since the pandemic hit on June 11. Throughout the busy summer season, the daily average hovered around the two million mark, trailing 2019 passenger numbers by roughly 500,000 a day on average.
Prior to the pandemic, daily passenger volumes of 2+ million were the norm rather than the exception. At the onset of the pandemic, daily passenger throughput fell as low as 100,000 in April 2020, before slowly climbing back to its current level. As of August 10, the TSA performed an average of 1.44 million safety checks per day this year, compared to 940,000 during the same period of last year and 2.32 million in 2019.
This chart shows the seven-day average of travelers passing through TSA checkpoints at U.S. airports.
