The number of airline travelers over the Labor Day holiday exceeded the number of travelers for the same weekend in 2019, a first for comparisons with pre-pandemic travel. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened more than 8.7 million people over the four-day long weekend. According to the TSA, the weekend travel volume represents 102% of volume for the same pre-pandemic holiday weekend in 2019 and is the first time that a holiday weekend passenger screening volume exceeds that of 2019.
In 2019, Labor Day was on Monday, Sept. 2, and TSA screened 8.62 million passengers. The Labor Day weekend represents the conclusion of the summer travel season. This year, Friday marked the heaviest travel day, as TSA officers screened 2.48 million passengers.
Over the course of the long weekend, 94.9% of TSA PreCheck® passengers waited less than 5 minutes. About 91.6% of those passengers in standard screening lanes waited less than 15 minutes.
During the weekend, Transportation Security Officers intercepted 67 firearms and prevented them from entering aircraft passenger cabins. On average, TSA stopped 17.3 firearms each day at checkpoints since the beginning of the year. If this pace continues, TSA anticipates that firearm catches at checkpoints will eclipse the current full year-record of 5,972 firearms intercepted at the nation’s checkpoints in 2021.
“TSA’s highly trained and dedicated workforce facilitated secure travel for millions of passengers during the busy summer travel season with very little disruptions at the checkpoint,” said TSA Acting Administrator David Pekoske. “We were also able to continue the deployment of new technologies that facilitate stronger identity verification procedures and enhanced security screening for carry-on bags.”
