The U.S. Transportation Security Administration screened 2.24 million airline passengers on Friday, the highest number of passengers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it announced on Saturday.
TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein announced the milestone on Twitter, saying it was the ‘highest checkpoint volume’ since March 2020, when the pandemic took hold in the United States, bringing travel and business to a halt.
Earlier in the week, the TSA said it had expected to screen about 20 million air passengers during the busy Thanksgiving travel period – from November 19 to November 28 – and predicted volumes may be close to pre-pandemic levels.
Major U.S. airlines had predicted an uptick in air travel over the last few days.
Up to 20 million Americans are expected to fly over the next week, and a convergence of factors could create a perfect storm for airline chaos
The Transportation Security Administration screened nearly 2.24 million airline passengers on Friday, the highest number since the COVID-19 pandemic began
Delta Air Lines said it expects to fly up to 5.6 million passengers from Friday through November 30, nearly 300% over 2020’s 2.2 million Delta passengers for the period but still below the 6.3 million passengers during the same period in 2019.
United Airlines said it anticipates more than 4.5 million passengers during the Thanksgiving travel period – about 88% of 2019 volume.
United said it was adding about 700 domestic flights for Thanksgiving week, and would fly 87 percent of its 2019 domestic schedule in November.
Last week, the Biden administration lifted travel restrictions for fully vaccinated air travelers from 33 countries, including China, South Africa, Brazil and much of Europe.
Overall, AAA predicts Thanksgiving travel overall will rebound to near pre-pandemic levels, with 53.4 million Americans expected to travel for the holiday — a 13% increase from last year.
The Transportation Security Administration screened nearly 2.24 million airline passengers on Friday, the highest number since the COVID-19 pandemic began
Rubal Singh, center, stacking bags with his Singh family as they prepare to travel to India over the Thanksgiving holiday with up to 2 million people expected to pass through LAX alone
A chaotic period of travel during Thanksgiving looms with recent operational meltdowns at Southwest and American Airlines recent in the memory.
‘Even before the pandemic, reports of major delays, cancellations and stranded passengers were somewhat of a holiday tradition,’ said Willis Orlando from Scott’s Cheap Flights to KSL.
‘This year, folks are understandably more nervous than ever,’ Orlando said with recent mass flight cancellations giving travelers concern.
Orlando believes delays are more likely to occur in relation to bad weather.
‘Unless we get the perfunctory snowstorm over Chicago O’Hare, over Atlanta over the holidays, I don’t think we’re going to have much of a problem at all,’ Mike Boyd, president of aviation forecasting firm Boyd Group International said.
‘It’s going to be busy, but it’s not going to be necessarily total chaos like some folks are projecting.’
TSA Administrator David Pekoske, pictured insisted that he expects agency staffing to be sufficient for what’s traditionally the busiest travel period of the year
‘I wouldn’t say there’s any worry because we planned for this for months in advance,’ the TSA’s David Pekoske told CNN. ‘We have a lot of data, we work very closely with the carriers and the airports, so we know what to anticipate and then we staff to the volumes that we expect to see.’
The Sunday after Thanksgiving is likely to see the highest numbers of people passing through TSA checkpoints as travelers make their way home but likely not reach the all-time record set in 2019 when 2.9 million were screened.
But with President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal employees, including Transportation Security Administration workers, set to take effect on Monday, there are concerns that sickouts or suspensions could cause huge delays at airport security, with only 60 percent of TSA workers vaccinated in the last report.
The latest public information about vaccination rates among TSA workers is now more than a month old, so it remains unclear how widespread sickouts and suspensions might be if the mandate is strictly enforced.
The TSA insists that the deadline will not result in any shortage of airport screeners, but the union that represents TSA workers has already publicly pleaded with the Biden administration to delay the mandate until after the holiday season.
‘Pay us or chaos!’ warned flight attendants for American Airlines subsidiary Piedmont, as they walked a picket line outside Charlotte Douglas International Airport last Thursday
The union representing American Airline customer service agents has launched a petition demanding better treatment ‘during the rough holiday season ahead of us’
In a letter to the White House this month, the president of the TSA’s union, the American Federation of Government Employees, pointed out that the vaccine deadline for federal employees had already been pushed back to January 4.
At the same time, long-suffering airline workers are growing increasingly vocal in their protests over pay and conditions, raising the possibility of organized labor actions impacting the busy travel week.
‘Pay us or chaos!’ warned flight attendants for American Airlines subsidiary Piedmont, as they walked a picket line outside Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina on Thursday.
Separately, the union representing American Airline customer service agents has launched a petition demanding better treatment ‘during the rough holiday season ahead of us,’ which has already garnered 20,000 signatures.
The petition alleges that the airline has implemented a ‘two-tiered system’ providing greater benefits and pay increases over the holidays to plane crew staff than it does to customer agents who face the brunt of customer frustration over flight changes.
‘We have dealt with all of the irregular operations, disgruntled and misbehaving passengers, covid pandemic as face to face representatives of our company, additional work loads with a shortage of agents,’ commented service agent Kathy Jones on the petition. ‘We are tired of feeling like an after thought if thought of at all.’
Pekoske said he didn’t think a vaccine mandate going into effect for TSA agents Monday would have any effect on staffing for Thanksgiving next week.
‘In fact, implementation of the mandate will make travel safer and healthier for everyone,’ he said. ‘So, we see quite a significant increase in the number of our officers that are vaccinated, and I’m very confident that there will be no impact for Thanksgiving.’
The coastal storm could hook in to New England, developing into a bomb cyclone
It could also hug the coast and move north, mostly impacting coastal cities
Meanwhile, severe weather could also throw a major wrench in the travel plans of many Americans.
Forecasters with AccuWeather predict that snows may blanket the Great Lakes on Sunday, and a possible bomb cyclone will threaten the Atlantic Coast a day or two later.
‘We could be looking at a huge mess and a real wrench in holiday travel,’ AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said.
The second storm could hit the densely populated Northeast on the day before Thanksgiving, which is traditionally the busiest single day of travel all year.
That storm has the potential to develop into a bomb cyclone, a severe weather event that would massively disrupt air travel.
High winds, rain and snow all have the potential to further disrupt airline operations that have recently struggled due to staffing shortages.
‘A major storm may significantly compound airport and airline operational challenges that have plagued the air travel industry of late,’ Porter said.
