As Thanksgiving travel approaches, US screens highest number of air passengers since pandemic start
TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein announced the milestone on Twitter, saying it was “the highest number of checkpoints” since March 2020, when the pandemic broke out in the United States, prompting Tourism and business activities halted.
Earlier in the week, the TSA said it expected to screen about 20 million airline passengers during the busy Thanksgiving period – from November 19 to November 28 – and predicted volumes could close to pre-pandemic levels.
Major US airlines have been predicting an increase in air travel over the past few days.
Delta Air Lines said it expects to fly up to 5.6 million passengers between Friday and November 30, nearly 300% of Delta’s 2.2 million passengers in 2020 for the period but still less than 6.3 million passengers in the same period in 2019.
United Airlines says it predicts more than 4.5 million passengers during Thanksgiving travel – about 88% of 2019’s production.
Last week, the Biden administration lifted travel restrictions on fully vaccinated airliners from 33 countries, including China, South Africa, Brazil and much of Europe. (Reporting by Valerie Volcovici and David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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