MIAMI – Cell phone video showed a crowded Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Monday, and there are further signs of an upward trend in air travel across South Florida and the country.
The Transportation Security Administration is reporting the highest number of recorded passengers, crew and employees screened since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Nearly 1 million people (984,234) were processed at TSA checkpoints nationwide yesterday. The number is still down from 2.5 million on the same date a year ago.
Sunday at Miami International Airport, 44,000 passengers made their way through. In March and April, the airport was averaging just 3,500 daily passengers early in the pandemic.
FLL saw an average of over 28,000 in August after just 3,400 in April.
It’s great news for an airline industry dealing with massive furloughs and layoffs. Other than a stimulus package that Congress has not been able to provide, the thing they really need is for more people to start traveling.
One downside is that some airline employees are worried that because of those ongoing layoffs and furloughs, there may not be enough staffing to safely process the increase in passengers.