TSA screened 15 million passengers last week, surpassing 2019 levels as travel demand continues to rise

• Airline traffic stalled out in September as the summer vacation season came to an end.
• Increasing international travel in October helped boost steady domestic bookings.

Transportation Security Administration checkpoint lines grew busier last week as the number of travelers heading through US airports surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 numbers, according to a new analysis by Bank of America.

TSA checkpoint traffic last week was 1% above 2019 levels, according to the analysis. Airport traffic briefly eclipsed pre-pandemic numbers over the Labor Day weekend, but ticked back down until this past week, according to the BofA analysis released Monday.

The TSA screened 15 million passengers last week at US airports, according to checkpoint data.

Since the Labor Day holiday, airline traffic stalled out in September as the summer vacation season came to an end. The reason for the uptick now: Increasing international travel in October helped boost steady domestic bookings, according to the report by BofA analyst Andrew Didora.

Pent-up demand from cooped-up US travelers, the relaxing of some global Covid-19 restrictions, and airlines adding new international routes all combined to increase demand in October, according to the analysis.

Meanwhile, Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier, Spirit, and Hawaiian last week all reported on the continued health of leisure travel heading into the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons, according to BofA.

Flight bookings have shown three straight weeks of steady improvements following a modest slow down after Labor Day, according to the report.

Bookings were up a percentage point system-wide for the week ending Oct. 23 compared to the same period in 2019, according to the BofA report. The increased volume in international bookings more than offset a drop in prices for global travel, according to BofA.