We know that demand for air travel has plummeted, as we’ve seen airlines cut capacity unlike ever before. For the past several weeks I’ve been keeping an eye on passenger numbers, as it’s interesting to see how demand is evolving.

I last provided an update on US passenger numbers last week, and I figure it’s time for an update — passenger numbers in the US continue to climb, very slowly but steadily.

Yesterday was the busiest day at US airports since March 27, 2020, with over 190,000 people being screened.

TSA data on how many people are flying

How has traffic through US airports changed over the past several weeks? Well, rather helpfully the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been publishing data on how many passengers have passed through US airport checkpoints each day, with a comparison to how many traveled on the same day of the week last year.

It’s interesting to take an updated look at this data, to note the changes we’re seeing. In particular, yesterday was by far the busiest day at US airports in six weeks.

Below I’ll share passenger data for the past several weeks. Note that:

  • The comparison is to the same day of the week last year (since passenger demand is highly dependent on the day of the week)
  • I’ll show a percentage in parenthesis with each date which represents the percent of people traveling this year compared to last year (for example, if it shows 5%, that means that 5% as many people are traveling this year compared to last year, so there has been a 95% decline)

Here’s the data on passenger in recent weeks:

  • Sunday, March 22: 454,516 vs. 2,542,643 (~17.9%)
  • Monday, March 23: 331,431 vs. 2,434,370 (~13.6%)
  • Tuesday, March 24: 279,018 vs. 2,151,913 (~13%)
  • Wednesday, March 25: 239,234 vs. 2,273,811 (~10.5%)
  • Friday, March 27: 199,644 vs. 2,538,384 (~7.9%)
  • Saturday, March 28: 184,027 vs. 2,172,920 (~8.5%)
  • Sunday, March 29: 180,002 vs. 2,510,294 (~7.2%)
  • Monday, March 30: 154,080 vs. 2,360,053 (~6.5%)
  • Tuesday, March 31: 146,348 vs. 2,026,256 (~7.2%)
  • Wednesday, April 1: 136,023 vs. 2,151,626 (~6.3%)
  • Thursday, April 2: 124,021 vs. 2,411,500 (~5.1%)
  • Friday, April 3: 129,763 vs. 2,476,884 (~5.2%)
  • Saturday, April 4: 118,302 vs. 2,011,715 (~5.9%)
  • Sunday, April 5: 122,029 vs. 2,462,929 (~4.9%)
  • Monday, April 6: 108,310 vs. 2,384,091 (~4.5%)
  • Tuesday, April 7: 97,130 vs. 2,091,056 (~4.6%)
  • Wednesday, April 8: 94,931 vs. 2,229,276 (~4.3%)
  • Thursday, April 9: 104,090 vs. 2,487,398 (~4.2%)
  • Friday, April 10: 108,977 vs. 2,590,499 (~4.2%)
  • Saturday, April 11: 93,645 vs. 2,059,142 (~4.5%)
  • Sunday, April 12: 90,510 vs. 2,446,801 (~3.7%)
  • Monday, April 13: 102,184 vs. 2,484,580 (~4.1%)
  • Tuesday, April 14: 87,534 vs. 2,208,688 (~4.0%)
  • Wednesday, April 15: 90,784 vs. 2,317,381 (~3.9%)
  • Thursday, April 16: 95,085 vs. 2,616,158 (~3.6%)
  • Friday, April 17: 106,385 vs. 2,457,133 (~4.3%)
  • Saturday, April 18: 97,236 vs. 1,988,205 (~4.9%)
  • Sunday, April 19: 105,382 vs. 2,356,802 (~4.5%)
  • Monday, April 20: 99,344 vs. 2,594,171 (~3.8%)
  • Tuesday, April 21: 92,859 vs. 2,227,475 (~4.2%)
  • Wednesday, April 22: 98,968 vs. 2,254,209 (~4.4%)
  • Thursday, April 23: 111,627 vs. 2,526,961 (~4.4%)
  • Friday, April 24: 123,464 vs. 2,521,897 (~4.9%)
  • Saturday, April 25: 114,459 vs. 1,990,464 (~5.8%)
  • Sunday, April 26: 128,875 vs. 2,506,809 (~5.1%)
  • Monday, April 27: 119,854 vs. 2,412,770 (~5.0%)
  • Tuesday, April 28: 110,913 vs. 2,102,068 (~5.3%)
  • Wednesday, April 29: 119,629 vs. 2,256,442 (~5.3%)
  • Thursday, April 30: 154,695 vs. 2,499,461 (~6.2%)
  • Friday, May 1: 171,563 vs. 2,546,029 (~6.7%)
  • Saturday, May 2: 134,261 vs. 1,968,278 (~6.8%)
  • Sunday, May 3: 170,254 vs. 2,512,598 (~6.8%)
  • Monday, May 4: 163,692 vs. 2,470,969 (~6.6%)
  • Tuesday, May 5: 130,601 vs. 2,106,597 (~6.2%)
  • Wednesday, May 6: 140,409 vs. 2,270,662 (~6.2%)
  • Thursday, May 7: 190,863 vs. 2,555,342 (~7.5%)

It’s probably worth clarifying that the above doesn’t paint the full picture of people traveling, since this only accounts for people being screened at US airports. For example, it doesn’t account for those arriving in the US from other countries and not connecting onwards.

Is demand for air travel slowly recovering?

While we’re nowhere close to pre-COVID-19 traffic levels, demand for air travel is slowly and pretty consistently increasing in the US.

A few observations based on the above data:

  • The past several weeks represents new record lows for traffic in over a decade
  • Tuesday, April 14, 2020, represented a new low for passenger traffic, with under 88,000 passengers; seeing the dip below 100,000 daily passengers is something I never thought I’d see
  • Demand fell significantly between between March 22 and April 12, even though in theory people were already social distancing and sheltering in place; for example, passenger numbers compared to last year decreased from an 82.1% drop to a 96.3% drop
  • Airline CEOs are largely claiming that demand bottomed out in early April, and the data seems to support that

Bottom line

The demand for air travel has dropped significantly, which is expected. However, demand is slowly but consistently starting to increase, though it’ll be a long time until we’re back to 2019 levels.

We’re now consistently back to over 100,000 passengers per day, and yesterday was the busiest day in about six weeks, both in terms of absolute passenger numbers, and also in terms of percent change compared to last year.

It will be worth watching how this trend continues, as we near the 200,000 passenger per day mark.

Airlines are definitely doing things to make flying safer, or at least make it appear that flying is safer — from requiring face masks, to often misleadingly promoting social distancing — though it still doesn’t quite seem responsible to fly for fun.

Does this TSA data surprise you?

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