U.S. Airports, TSA Face Passenger Surge, Record 3M Screened Expected July 7

Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) in Pennsylvania is reporting surging passenger traffic, with July expected to be a record-breaking month at the airport for multiple airlines, emblematic of increasingly high numbers of passengers transiting through U.S. airports since mid-May.

“In Pittsburgh, airlines are responding to high travel demand by adding additional capacity through more flights and larger aircraft,” PIT said in a statement. “At least five carriers serving PIT—American Airlines, Breeze Airways, Frontier Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Spirit Airlines—will each break their records for the most scheduled seats to and from PIT offered in a single month.”

PIT’s figures mirror those being recorded by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which has seen 12 of the 15 busiest days in its 22-year history come since mid-May.

The busiest-ever single day occurred on June 23, when TSA screened 2.99 million passengers at U.S. airports. The agency expects that number to be topped on July 7, the Sunday following the Independence Day holiday in the U.S., when it predicts it will screen 3 million passengers in a single day for the first time.

The agency has said it was typically screening 2.5 million passengers daily until mid-May, when numbers started leaping, with 2.9 million passengers per day screened now becoming routine. "High travel volumes and busy security checkpoints have become the norm lately,” TSA said in a statement.

“PIT saw nearly 20,000 daily passengers pass through security checkpoints on Monday, June 24,” the airport noted. “It was the highest daily total ever for PIT since the airport began tallying passenger throughput data in 2019.”

Bart Johnson, the TSA’s federal security director for 13 airports in upstate New York, said Rochester International Airport is “seeing a spike in checkpoint volume,” adding: “Travel volume … out of Rochester, as well as at other upstate New York airports, is expected to be high.”

TSA is advising passengers to arrive at airports 2 hr. before scheduled takeoff. “The best advice that I can offer is to get to the airport well before your ticketed departure time,” Johnson said.

PIT, for its part, is opening an alternate security checkpoint for PreCheck passengers from July 8 in an effort to manage the rising passenger volumes.

“We expect this summer to be our busiest ever, and summer travel usually peaks over the Independence Day holiday,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said. “We are ready, along with our airline and airport partners, to handle this boost in passenger volumes.”