Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country in March, more people have traveled through U.S. airports on Wednesday than ever before, the TSA said.
Just days before Christmas, security agents screened 1,191,123 people at U.S. airports on Dec. 23, TSA spokesman Lisa Farbstein said – the most in one day since March 16, when 1,257,823 flyers passed TSA checkpoints.
The increase in air travel comes despite requests from health officials to stay at home and avoid travel during the holidays, amid a continued rise in COVID-19 cases.
Still, Wednesday’s throughput was just 61 percent of people going through TSA screeners on the same day in 2019.
Air travel remained well below normal during the pandemic. While the shutdown took place around the world, TSA agents screened just 90,000 people on multiple days in April.
Air travel started to increase in late April and has been steadily increasing ever since. Last weekend was the first time since March that Friday, Saturday and Sunday all saw more than a million people enter US airports, according to TSA figures.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging Americans not to have inter-household celebrations as the coronavirus continues to spread.
“People who are not currently living in your housing unit, such as students returning home from school for the holidays, should be considered part of different households,” the agency’s guidelines said.