Nov 29, 2021, 09:58am
The number of people traveling on Sunday was the most since the beginning of the Pandemic, according to a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spokesman.
Travelers are at Los Angeles International Airport.
Los Angeles Times.
The agency screened over 2 million people on Sunday, marking a new high.
The busiest day since March 2020 was Wednesday, when 2.3 million people were screened.
The number of people who traveled by air on November 28 last year was over a million compared to the number in 2019.
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There were 20.9 million people. In the 10 days leading up to and including Sunday, the number of people going through the checkpoint was equivalent to almost all of the pre-pandemic levels.
The key background.
The Thanksgiving air travel was close to reaching the levels of the year but fell short of the predictions of the TSA. The airline industry has been hard hit by the Pandemic and will serve less passengers in 2020. The financial impact of Covid-19 has been likened to that of 9/11. Hundreds of thousands of employees have been fired, or put in limbo, and many airlines have been forced to retire a large portion of their fleets because of the swine flu.
What to watch for.
The emergence of the new Covid-19 variant omicron is likely to cause any optimism surrounding the strong travel numbers to be shattered. The travel restrictions announced by the Biden administration targeting eight southern African nations took effect Monday despite opposition from the countries in question.
Sunday after Thanksgiving is when air travel breaks a record.
The World Health Organization flags global risk from Omicron.
The UK, Netherlands, and Australia are where Omicron is spreading.
