Airports shatter pandemic record

More than 1.3 million people “crowded” the nation’s airports over the weekend to head back home from Christmas and New Year vacations, the most travelers seen since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sunday’s traffic 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 1million passengers went through checkpoints, a milestone otherwise only hit five times since April.

The traffic boost comes at an uneasy time for airlines and the economy with the COVID-19 virus infecting a record number of Americans, hospital beds reaching capacity and a potentially more contagious strain making its way into the U.S.