A record 6,737 firearms were intercepted at airport checkpoints last year, the Transportation Security Administration announced Wednesday.
22.12.2023 - 15:20 / travelpulse.com / David Pekoske / Patrick Clarke
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) anticipates that airport security checkpoints will be busier this winter holiday travel period compared to last year.
Fortunately, the agency says it's prepared to meet the surging travel demand.
The official end-of-the-year holiday travel period runs from Thursday, December 21 through Tuesday, January 2. TSA is projecting that the busiest days will be Thursday, December 21; Friday, December 29, and Monday, January 1.
TSA said it expects to screen more than 2.5 million passengers each of those days, signaling a 6 percent increase from 2022. The busiest day last year was December 29, when officers screened nearly 2.4 million passengers nationwide.
The projections come after the TSA screened nearly 30 million passengers during November's 12-day Thanksgiving holiday period. The agency broke the record for most passengers in a single day on Sunday, November 26, screening more than 2.9 million passengers at security checkpoints across the country.
"We are prepared to handle the busy passenger volumes this winter holiday season," TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in a statement.
"TSA’s continued success during this record year for travel is a direct result of teamwork, planning and professional execution across the agency, from our frontline employees to those behind the scenes; partnerships with airports and air carriers; and innovative checkpoint technologies that improve security effectiveness, efficiency and the passenger experience," he concluded.
Industry trade group Airlines for America (A4A) projects that 39 million people will board flights in the U.S. between Wednesday, December 20 and Tuesday, January 2, for an average of 2.8 million passengers per day.
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A record 6,737 firearms were intercepted at airport checkpoints last year, the Transportation Security Administration announced Wednesday.
Jet2.com and Jet2holidays are on the countdown until their first flights depart from Liverpool John Lennon Airport, with operations starting in exactly three months The UK’s largest tour operator and third largest airline will start operating flights and holidays from Liverpool John Lennon Airport in exactly three months, with a flight to Tenerife signalling the start of operations from the airport. To mark the special occasion, Jet2.com and Jet2holidays have promised exciting plans at the airport for their first day.
The company has released an update to its estimated budget at its Dallas-Addison home basing campus project.
American was able to achieve this strong performance despite weather in many parts of the country and a significant volume of non-scheduled, non-air carrier operations that resulted in increased air traffic control delays.
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Southwest Airlines canceled 16,900 flights and stranded more than 2 million fliers between December 2022 and early January 2023, as operations took a nosedive amid severe winter storms that disrupted holiday air travel across much of the United States last year. But while other major U.S. carriers recovered from the weather-fueled delays and cancellations, Southwest struggled to normalize operations and continued to cancel flights in the days following Christmas 2022. Now, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is making it very clear that that level of failed service comes with serious consequences.
With holiday travel coming up, travelers may be thinking back to last year, when a spate of severe winter storms grounded flights across the country just around Christmas, and an operational meltdown at Southwest Airlines dragged on for nearly a week after.
There's no place like home for the holidays—but for many of us, getting there unfortunately requires a trip to the airport, and this year promises to be one of the busiest holiday travel seasons yet.
Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan vowed Christmas travel would be smoother this year following last year’s meltdown that saw thousands of flights canceled and customers stranded.