New York (CNN Business) Despite a record number of new Covid cases and the Centers for Disease Control recommending against traveling for Thanksgiving, Friday and Saturday were two of the busiest days at US airports since the pandemic brought air travel to a near halt in March.
The Transportation Security Administration screened slightly more than 1 million people at US airports on Friday. Saturday's screenings fell just short of that mark, but were enough to bring the two-day total to 2 million.
That's still only 42% of the volume screened on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving a year ago, but it marks only the second- and third- busiest days for US airport traffic since mid-March. The only time that topped those days was October 18, when 1.03 million passengers were screened.
The rush of travelers comes on a day that Johns Hopkins University reported a record 195,542 new US Covid-19 cases confirmed. And it comes the day after the CDC issued its warning against traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday.
United Airlines UAL Southwest LUV American Airlines AAL on Thursday said that it has seen some increase in flight cancellations and a drop-off in bookings with the rising number of Covid cases.andare also reporting a decline in bookings, though they have yet to report any increase in canceled reservations.
OverseasDom on November 22nd, 2020 at 19:43 UTC »
my university tells students to be aware of how dangerous it can be to go home for thanksgiving but also closes the dormitories, dining halls,and kicks the students out, forcing us out of state and international students to fly home! Awesome guys!
Darkframemaster43 on November 22nd, 2020 at 16:21 UTC »
According to the official government statistics, normally a little less than ~3 million people travel by air on average per day in the US to add some context to this number.
Last year, about 26+ million traveled by air over the Thanksgiving holiday period.
So while 1 million people traveling by air is still a significant number, it is thankfully much lower than it could be.
EDIT: Thank you to those who pointed out the typo in the Star Tribune article, I updated this post with a number given by the TSA because the other number people cited to point out the typo was just a projected number, not the actual amount of people who traveled.
mathvenus on November 22nd, 2020 at 16:04 UTC »
And many colleges are finishing up their first semester. I’m sure that is helping boost the travel numbers.
Edit: I know some universities adjusted their calendars to start early, have no breaks (other than Election Day and a couple of other single holidays), and be out just before Thanksgiving. Source: My daughter and nephew are both freshmen this year and they go to school in different states but both of their schools are done prior to Thanksgiving. I was assuming they weren’t the only schools doing this and from the comments it seems that many others are just going virtual after break.