The week that includes the July 4th holiday is one of the busiest and most profitable periods for airlines in the United States. Following the holiday, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reported record-breaking checkpoint numbers at airports across the country. Here are the numbers, and this is how they compare to the previous year.

Increased traffic during the long weekend

The TSA published travel statistics for July 1 to July 5, 2024, comparing them with figures from the same period in 2023. According to their data, TSA screened more passengers in 2024 than in 2023, with over 12.5 million passengers in 2024, compared to 11.6 million in 2023.

Interestingly, despite screening more travelers overall in 2024, July 4 saw more activity in 2023. Data shows that 2.5 million passengers traveled on July 4, 2023, compared to 2.2 million passengers at airports nationwide on July 4, 2024.

Due to the long weekend, more travel is expected between July 6 and July 7, 2024. However, the TSA has not yet released data for these days. The TSA noted that travel numbers during holiday weeks may be slightly delayed.

With such a high demand, the TSA confirmed that airport teams were fully staffed and had been preparing for the holiday season for several months. They have assured travelers that wait times will be minimal — less than 10 minutes in TSA PreCheck lanes and under 30 minutes in regular TSA lanes.

Insights into New York's airport traffic

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Stewart International Airport (SWF), and Teterboro Airport (TEB), projected to handle a record-breaking number of passengers over the extended holiday weekend.

As per the report, it expects over 2.1 million passengers to pass through John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia, and New York Stewart International airports from Wednesday, July 3, through Sunday, July 7. However, the airport authority will finalize the data once the holiday weekend is over.

The authority overseeing these airports said that this anticipated volume would set a new record for the holiday period, marking a 9.6% increase compared to the same period in July 2019 before the pandemic and a 6.1% rise compared to 2023. Wednesday and Thursday were anticipated to be the peak days at the airports in the region.