Starting March 1, when the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic first appeared in the United States, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) started releasing data focused on the number of passengers going through airports all over the country.
The data, found right here, includes two easily comparable columns, one highlighting the number of daily travelers in 2020 and the other one focusing on the same exact day the year before.
A note: the TSA only accounts for for folks screened at US airports and not those flying into the country internationally.
When the agency began keeping track in March, the numbers were pretty standard as compared to 2019 (2,280,522 total travelers on March 1, 2020 and 2,301,439 on the same date in 2019). But a quick look at the data on later dates makes it apparent that people have been traveling a lot less this year.
On April 14, 2020—in the midst of the pandemic—the TSA registered 87,534 travelers compared to the 2,208,688 people that took trips on the same date last year.
Good news is on the horizon, though: as the numbers keep slowly increasing, the TSA notes that June 7 was actually a record-setting day for air travel in the United States during the pandemic, as 441,255 travelers found their way through airports—100,000 more people than the day before.
The slow rise in numbers is likely due to both the opening up of certain states and overall security and sanitation measures put in place across airlines. Things are, indeed, looking up.
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