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Air travel in the U.S. didn’t show signs of declining this holiday season despite the spread of the coronavirus’s omicron variant — until Christmas Eve.
The number of people passing through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, a reliable measurement of passenger air traffic, dipped to the lowest level in almost two weeks on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day as severe weather and Covid concerns caused thousands of flight delays and cancellations during the holiday weekend.
About 1.7 million people passed through TSA checkpoints Friday and 1.5 million Saturday, the lowest single-day total since Dec. 14 and almost one-third fewer passengers than the previous Saturday.
The dip was a sharp departure from travel trends during the week leading up to the holiday, which showed strong numbers despite the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant.
The U.S. averaged 1.9 million to 2.1 million travelers a day from Dec. 17 to Thursday. The 2.23 million passengers who passed through TSA checkpoints Dec. 17 represented the sixth-largest travel day of the year, and the travel total Thursday exceeded 2019 levels for the fourth time this year.
Airlines blamed omicron-related staffing shortages and winter storms for the holiday cancellations. Data from the flight data company FlightAware showed that more than 8,000 flights were canceled globally from Friday to Sunday.
