Coronavirus Air Travel: These Numbers Show the Massive Impact of the Pandemic
Passenger traffic is down by 95 percent and cancellations in some regions are up 5,000 percent.
It's hard to fully grasp the far-reaching implications of the coronavirus pandemic on the air travel industry so far, as government restrictions continue to decimate passenger demand and force would-be travelers to cancel trips for the foreseeable future.
The clearest way to get a handle on the current state of air travel? Take a look at some of the record-breaking data. We dug through the key numbers of the industry right now to help sketch out a picture. Whether it's the plummeting amount of fliers passing through TSA checkpoints or the thousands of grounded planes, here are a few metrics that illustrate the coronavirus impact on worldwide air travel.
Air passenger traffic is down 95 percent
The number of passengers taking to the air has fallen drastically in the last few weeks. On April 7, the total amount of U.S. fliers screened by the TSA fell below 100,000 for the first time in the agency's history. That's a 95 percent drop compared to the passenger numbers from the same day in 2019, when 2,091,056 people passed through the checkpoints. Experts say the majority of those screened were airline crew members or healthcare workers heading to COVID-19 hot spots.
