Travelers flock to airports despite officials’ pleas to stay home

Despite recommendations from local, state and federal officials not to travel over the holidays, Americans have been setting pandemic passenger highs at airports across the nation.

Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the safest way to celebrate winter holidays is at home with the people in your household, Transportation Security Administration data shows that many were not heeding the warning in the week leading up to Christmas.

Between Dec. 18 and Wednesday, TSA checkpoints at the nation’s airports screened over 6.34 million passengers, the most over a six-day period since March 12-17.

While that’s a high for the pandemic, passenger volume over those six days is down from the same period in 2019, when 14.02 million travelers were screened.

Additionally, the TSA recorded the first three consecutive days in which more than 1 million passengers passed through its checkpoints. At least 1 million passengers were screened each day between Dec. 18 and Dec. 20, with an additional 1.19 million passengers screened Dec. 23.

This comes as 1.5 million new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the past seven days, according to the CDC.

At Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport, passenger volume has picked up a bit over the week, but not at the same level as national numbers, according to McCarran spokesman Joe Rajchel.

“Our team hadn’t observed anything higher or lower than any other weekends in December,” Rajchel said. “But we have seen anecdotally that the past few days, it’s been an uptick over those same days in prior December weeks (this year).”

Rajchel attributed that to Las Vegas’ status as a leisure destination, not one known for family gatherings surrounding holidays.

The increase in travelers is occurring as the number of COVID-19 cases among TSA employees is spiking around the country.

As of Wednesday, there have been 4,576 positive coronavirus cases among TSA workers nationwide since the pandemic began, with 114 of those at McCarran, TSA data shows. Of the national cases, 743 are active.

Since Dec. 9, McCarran has seen 13 new cases, while 753 new cases have been reported nationally. The latest cases at McCarran occurred Dec. 18.

Travelers are adhering to the COVID-19 regulations in place at McCarran, including social distancing and mask wearing. That’s on top of the airport’s increased cleaning and disinfection practices, with no known issues, Rajchel said.

“Nothing that we’ve been made aware of,” he said.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.