Memorial Day Travel Numbers Surge Past 2019 Levels

This summer travel season started with one of the busiest weekends at U.S. airports ever.

According to the latest numbers from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), over the four-day Memorial Day Weekend, almost 9.8 million individuals passed through TSA security checkpoints nationwide. That number is about 300,000 higher than the same holiday weekend in 2019, which was the previous Memorial Day record.

That includes a single-day, post-pandemic record, which came on Friday when 2.74 million travelers were screened, slightly more than the 2.57 million screened in 2019 and the 2.39 screened in 2022. Each of the four days was above levels from the same day in 2019.

The numbers were in line with projections, with experts predicting that, in light of the travel boom that North American consumers have experienced over the past year, this summer could be one of the busiest ever at airports.

To help deal with the busy summer, the TSA recently made a significant change to its policies that it hopes will help ease traffic at security checkpoints. 

The TSA will now allow teenagers aged between 13 and 17, who aren’t yet enrolled in the TSA PreCheck program, to go through the PreCheck lane as long as their parents or guardians are enrolled and they are traveling on the same reservation. Children 12 and under are already allowed to do the same.