Undeterred holiday travelers jam US airports on weekend
The Fourth of July holiday weekend is jamming U.S. airports with their biggest crowds since the pandemic began in 2020.
About 2.49 million passengers cleared security checkpoints at U.S. airports Friday, surpassing the previous pandemic-era record of 2.46 million reached earlier in the week, according to figures released Saturday by the Transportation Security Administration.
The escalating numbers show leisure travelers aren’t being deterred from flying by rising fares, the ongoing spread of COVID-19 or worries about recurring flight delays and cancellations.
Friday’s passenger volume marked a 13% increase from July 1 last year, which fell on the Thursday before the Fourth of July.
In a more telling sign of how close U.S. air travel is reverting to pre-pandemic conditions, an average of 2.33 million passengers went through security checkpoints daily at domestic airports during the seven days ending July 1. That was close to the seven-day average of roughly 2.38 million passengers during the same 2019 period, according to the TSA.
But airlines have struggled to keep up with the surging demand amid staffing shortages and other issues that have resulted in recurring waves of exasperating flight delays and cancellations that have been transforming some vacations into nightmarish ordeals.
The headaches continued Friday, although they weren’t as bad as they have been at other times in recent months. There were more than 6,800 flight delays and another 587 flight cancellations affecting U.S. airports Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware.
Travelers also have had to pay higher prices for tickets driven up by soaring fuel costs and other inflationary factors, as well as navigate health risks posed by continuing COVID-19 infections.
The travel bug is also congesting highways, even with the national average price for gasoline hovering around $5 per gallon, and above $6 per gallon in California.
AAA predicts that nearly 48 million people will travel at least 50 miles or more from home over the weekend, slightly fewer than in 2019.