Airline travel over Labor Day surges to most since March

U.S. airline passenger traffic reached new heights over the Labor Day holiday, flirting with a daily total of nearly 1 million fliers for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic erupted.

On Friday, 968,673 people passed through security screening portals at U.S. airports, the Transportation Security Administration said on its website. That was 44.1% of the equivalent day last year, the most since levels plunged in mid-March.

More than 4.1 million people were screened by TSA from Thursday through Monday. Three of those five days saw raw passenger counts that were the highest in months.

Passenger levels fell to 4% of 2019 in mid-April, but have gradually risen. Over the past seven days, the rate was 35.7%.

An average of more than 2 million people a day traveled last year, with levels approaching 2.5 million during the busy summer months.