Travelers way down during holiday season
Passenger traffic during the first holiday season of the coronavirus crisis plunged about 60 percent at New England’s six largest airports, including Connecticut’s Bradley International, according to data released Tuesday by the Transportation Security Administration.
From Dec. 18 to Jan. 3, TSA officers screened more than 470,000 passengers at Bradley in Windsor Locks, Boston Logan International, Green Airport in Rhode Island, Portland International Jetport in Maine, Manchester-Boston Regional in New Hampshire and Burlington International in Vermont.
During the same period in 2019, TSA screened more than 1.2 million people at those six airports.
In the same timeframe at Bradley, about 64,000 passengers were screened, equal to a daily average of nearly 3,800. The total represented a 63 percent decline from the approximately 175,000 passengers screened at the airport between Dec. 19, 2019, and Jan. 5, 2020.
“TSA officers worked long hours during the holiday period to ensure safe and secure holiday travel,” Bob Allison, TSA federal security director for Massachusetts and Maine, said in a statement.
“Our checkpoints were fully staffed so passengers could quickly and safely get through security to get to and from their holiday destinations.”
The plummeting passenger counts did not come as a surprise in light of the precipitous decreases in air
travel seen earlier last year and calls from public officials across the country to avoid unnecessary travel during the holidays. Aviation officials said they strived to make airports as safe as possible during the pandemic.
During the holiday period, an average of about 27,600 passengers per day were screened at the six airports. On Dec. 27, the busiest day of the season, nearly 36,000 travelers passed through TSA security checkpoints in New England, including about 5,000 at Bradley.
Boston Logan again ranked as New England’s busiest airport. More than 329,000 passengers were screened there during the holiday period, equal to a daily average of about 19,000.
Since the start of the pandemic, airports and airlines have been grappling with steep decreases in demand, although the holiday turnout shows that the numbers have been recovering in the past months.
A total of about 2.1 million travelers passed through Bradley in the first 10 months of 2020, down 63
percent from the same period in 2019.
U.S. airlines carried about 30 million domestic and international passengers in October, down 62 percent from the same period last year — but around 10 times more than a record low of 3 million in April, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
TSA officials said they expect daily passenger traffic to rise steadily and “follow seasonal patterns.” But they anticipate that volumes will remain well below prepandemic levels through most of 2021.
Managing risks
On its website, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises potential travelers that “postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.”
Given the significant number of passengers still flying, aviation officials said that they have ramped up health and safety measures in response to the virus.