US travel hits new high despite December was the deadliest month for COVID deaths.
More than 1.3 million people passed through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints at U.S. airports on Sunday. While this figure represents 55% of the 2.4 million people TSA screened a year earlier, it was still the highest volume since March 15.
Air travel spiked around Christmas and New Year despite warnings from health officials to avoid travel to help curb the spread of the virus. December was the deadliest month in the U.S. for COVID-19 deaths.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House advisor and one of the country’s leading infectious disease specialists, has warned about a further increase in Covid-19 infections following the holidays.
Airirline executives have said they expect demand to wane outside of peak holiday periods.
Vaccines have fueled some optimism about a recovery but the timing of when travelers will return en masse is still unclear.
“As difficult as 2020 was, in many ways I expect the next 12 months to be even more challenging,” Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian wrote to employees on New Year’s Day. “Just as we’ve never experienced a global pandemic in our history, we’ve also never had to create and execute a plan for recovery from one. We will be building a new Delta centered on a medical and economic recovery that hasn’t yet taken shape.”
Elsewhere, American Airlines expects the impact of the pandemic to continue to weigh on demand and schedules into 2021, the carrier’s president said last week.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline is flying about 45% of its 2019 schedule this month, Robert Isom told reporters at Miami International Airport, before the debut of the Boeing 737 Max’s first U.S. flight with commercial passengers since it was grounded nearly two years ago.
“We anticipate that’s something that will carry on into January and February. We are hopeful that the vaccine will show some promise,” he said.
In recent weeks, American and its competitors warned investors that a surge in COVID-19 cases and new travel restrictions will hurt fourth-quarter revenue, despite the spike in travel around the year-end holidays.
