Travel record caps a bustling holiday season

More than 1.3 million people crowded the nation’s airports to head back home from Christmas and New Year vacations, the most travelers seen since the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic. Traffic on Jan. 3 capped a

17-day holiday travel period where nearly 18 million people started travel at U.S. airports, according to figures from the Transportation

Security Administration. On 11 of those days, more than 1 million passengers went through checkpoints, a milestone otherwise only hit five times since April.

While those were stellar days for 2020, airports were welcoming more than twice as many passengers in 2019.

Still, the traffic boost comes at an uneasy time for airlines and the economy with COVID-19 infecting a record number of

Americans, hospital beds reaching capacity and a potentially more contagious strain making its way into the U.S.

After nearly 10 months with record-low travel numbers, some Americans showed they were ready to fly again.

It’s a welcome boost for airlines. From the beginning of March through the end of December, passenger traffic at airports nationwide fell 72.3% and analysts are expecting airline losses to top $35 billion for 2020 when yearend results are reported later this month.

Even counting normal months in January and February, TSA said air travel screenings were down 61% for the year, just

324 million passengers, compared to 824 million in

2019.

TSA “expects volume will remain well below pre-pandemic levels through most of 2021,” the agency said in a statement.

DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/AP Travelers check in at a ticket counter Dec. 31 at Denver International Airport.