Even as Omicron Cases Rise, TSA Numbers Indicate Holiday Travel Rush Has Begun

As Christmas is fast approaching, recent data from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) show that holiday travel rush started. Despite the recent news regarding the omicron variant, Americans are still traveling this holiday.

On Thursday, December 16^th, TSA screened 2,062,579 passengers. The Thursday, before that, December 9^th, TSA recorded 1,959,937 passengers. And on December 17^th, 2,233,754 passengers went through TSA checkpoints. In comparison to 2019 numbers, TSA recorded 2,608,088 passengers on the Friday before Christmas.

Airlines are expecting a significant number of passengers for winter. Delta Air Lines announced that it is expecting around 7.8 million passengers on December 17^th to January 3^rd. Even if it’s still lower than its 2019 performance, this signifies an improvement from last year.

Omicron Variant and Holiday Travel Rush

On Thursday, Delta announced that it is expecting profits for Q4 and an annual profit for 2022. And also, even if the omicron variant slowed down international travel, Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian said that “Omicron (is) not going to impact our holiday bookings”.

AAA estimates that around 109 million Americans will travel for this holiday season. That’s a 34% jump from 2020.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, said that traveling will always pose some risk. Fauci said that “the risk is never zero, that’s for sure”. However, he thinks that those who completed their vaccine doses “and hopefully also boosted” can feel “reasonably comfortable” to travel and enjoy the holidays with family members.

The US recorded a week-long average of 123,000 new infections a day. New York recorded 21,027 new positive cases in the entire state on Friday alone. That’s the highest number of cases for a single day. Also, the report came almost a month since New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that fully vaccinated people can celebrate New Year’s Eve at Times Square this year.

Public health officials warn that the omicron variant is likely to turn into the dominant variant in the US. Former chief of the CDC Dr. Tom Frieden said that even vaccinated individuals should “get boosted now”.

Fauci said that “When you have a larger number of people getting infected, the total amount of hospitalizations is going to be more”.