Friday was the busiest day for the country’s airports since the pandemic began in March 2020. Above, a passenger wears a face mask while waiting for a Delta Airlines flight at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on February 18, 2021. Charlie Riedel / AP hide caption
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Charlie Riedel / AP
Friday was the busiest day for the country’s airports since the pandemic began in March 2020. Above, a passenger wears a face mask while waiting for a Delta Airlines flight at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on February 18, 2021.
Charlie Riedel / AP
With the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines in the US, more and more travelers are taking to the skies.
Friday was the busiest day for the country’s airports since mid-March 2020 when COVID-19 crashed air traffic.
Around 1.36 million passengers passed security checks on Friday numbers from the Transportation Security Administration. This is the highest volume since March 15, 2020, when more than 1.5 million passengers were reported at checkpoints.
However, travel remains well below pre-COVID levels. In March 2019, the average traffic at the checkpoint was more than 2 million passengers per day.
Friday’s surge was due to the increase in the total number of COVID-19 doses administered in the United States over 100 million and approximately 35 million people are now fully vaccinated. The US currently manages more than 2.3 million shots a day.
The high number of travelers also comes at a time when many students traditionally Travel for the spring break Vacations.
Despite the growing number of Americans vaccinated, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still up and running consultation People to “delay travel and stay home to protect themselves and others from COVID-19”.
If people have to travel, the CDC says they should get a vaccine, get tested for the virus less than three days before traveling if possible, wear a mask, and avoid crowds.
A sustained increase in air traffic would be welcome news for the aviation industry, which has been hit by the pandemic.
But fears before new variants of the coronavirus can limit gains from increased vaccination. Some of these variants may be more contagious or less likely to be stopped by vaccines.
The percentage of Americans who believe the pandemic will get worse rose from 13.7% in late February to 16.3% in early March Survey data by Destination Analysts.
Before the news of the variants came in, “We thought everything was going in the right direction,” said Roger Dow, President and CEO of the US Travel Association. told David Schaper from NPR.
