Travel is back, you could say.
On Sunday, June 27, 2021, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint travel numbers totaled 2,167,380 travelers. That’s the highest volume of passengers in a single day since March 5, 2020 (2,198,517)—just before the COVID-19 shut down travel globally.
In fact, the month of June has seen TSA traveler throughput top 2 million on 10 different occasions (with data going through Monday, June 28). What’s even more impressive is all of these instances have come since June 11. That said, the 2 million mark was a number regularly topped in 2019, and the June 2021 numbers are still well shy of the single best day in 2019 (November 29, the day after Thanksgiving), which saw 2,882,915 travelers go through TSA checkpoints. In 2020, there were 41 instances in which TSA traveler throughput topped 2 million—all of which occurred by March 7.
The travel rebound is very likely due to continued vaccinations (although the Biden Administration admitted it won’t hit its 70 percent vaccination goal by the Fourth of July, according to USA Today), as well the downward trend of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. According to The New York Times, there were 11,842 average new cases on June 28, marking a 15 percent drop in the last 14 days. Hospitalizations were down 14 percent and deaths down 16 percent.
On the vaccination front, 54 percent of all Americans (including those under 12, who are not yet eligible for a vaccine) have received at least one dose; 46 percent are fully vaccinated. Sixty-six percent of Americans aged 18 and up have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, while 57 percent are fully vaccinated.
Source: TSA
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