U.S. air travel increased during Thanksgiving, according to data from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
U.S. air travel soared to the highest levels since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, an increase that took place despite warnings against travel.
TSA screened about 1.2 million people at airports on Sunday, the most since March 16. However, this is considered down by about 60% from the nearly 2.9 million people who underwent screening earlier.
Airlines including American and United gave employees extra pay to manage the increase in demand, while Delta Air Lines had to cancel flights because of a shortage of pilots over the holiday break.
Meanwhile, JetBlue Airways predicted that its revenue would drop 70% in the fourth quarter compared with the same time last year.
“Booking trends remain volatile and the company continues to believe demand and revenue recovery will be non-linear through the fourth quarter and beyond,” the New York-based carrier said in a securities filing.
U.S. air travel, holiday restrictions
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said that holiday restrictions are necessary to prevent Covid spread.
“What we expect, unfortunately, as we go for the next couple of weeks into December, is that we might see a surge superimposed on the surge we are already in,” Dr. Fauci said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press”. “I don’t want to frighten people, except to say it is not too late to do something about this.”
Dr. Fauci called on the public to be cautious as they return from Thanksgiving holiday travel and wear masks to help contain the spread of the virus. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in November asked people to not travel for Thanksgiving, more than 9 million people traveled in airports ahead of the holiday and the weekend after it.
“I think we are going to have to make decisions as a nation, state, city, and family that we are in a very difficult time, and we’re going to have to do the kinds of restrictions of things we would have liked to have done, particularly in this holiday season, because we’re entering into what’s really a precarious situation,” Fauci said.
Moreover, Dr. Fauci said that colleagues from different states have asked him for advice about potential local lockdown measures if problems with hospitalization turned worse. Americans must implement their own virus mitigation steps in order to manage hospital systems and not experience lockdowns, Fauci added.
“We’ve got to realize that we do have within our capability to be able to blunt that by doing the simple things that we talk about short of locking down, so we don’t precipitate the necessity of locking down,” Fauci said.
Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, expressed his concern about a spike in infections and hospitalizations from increased travel.
Giroir, who leads the government’s Covid-19 testing effort, told CNN that he cannot offer predictions on daily death counts but that “a lot depends on this weekend” in relation to the U.S. avoiding major increases in cases and deaths.
