While Thanksgiving travel has certainly been lighter than usual, U.S. air travel hit its highest level since mid-March 2019 over the holiday and millions of Americans still traveled by car.
More people passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints the Sunday after Thanksgiving than on any other single day since the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed air travel, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
TSA said it screened 1.17 million people on Nov.29 when many Americans were heading home from their Thanksgiving travels. That was 41% of the 2.9 million people screened by TSA on the same day in 2019. Thanksgiving 2019 set a TSA record.
That means more than 9.4 million people have been screened in the Thanksgiving travel window, which began on the Friday before the holiday.
Since the pandemic gutted air travel in mid-March, checkpoints have screened more than one million passengers on only five days. Four occurred over the Thanksgiving holiday period.
