US airports report most travelers over Memorial Day weekend since March

Raleigh-Durham International Airport experienced its busiest week since the pandemic devastated air travel in March, with the largest number of passengers traveling through the airport on Memorial Day, officials said.

The Transportation Security Administration reported screening 14,921 passengers at RDU for the week ending Tuesday, a 30 percent increase over the previous week but still a 90 percent decline versus the same week in 2019.

TSA screened 2,778 departing passengers on Memorial Day, which was the highest screened passenger count at RDU since March 24, officials said.

The TSA reported screening just over 300,000 passengers nationwide on Thursday and Friday. On Memorial Day weekend last year, the TSA screened 2 million travelers.

CNN reports airlines have hit $2 billion in losses in the first quarter, and the next quarter is supposed to be worse.

Although RDU’s passenger counts remain significantly below 2019 levels, airport officials said they continue to see incremental growth on a weekly basis. Traffic at RDU bottomed out in mid-April at 96.5 percent below 2019 levels. Since then, RDU traffic has steadily increased to 90 percent below pre-pandemic levels, they said.

Landguth also said that traffic through the airport was down more than 96 percent in April from the same month last year.

Only 40,000 travelers flew through RDU in April, while 40,000 people traveled through the airport on an average day before the pandemic.

Few people are flying, but RDU installs plastic shields, implements one-way foot traffic to limit virus