


Labor Day weekend will cap off the United States's busiest summer of air travel with more than 14 million airline passengers expected to board flights, surpassing pre-pandemic travel rates and delivering a boom for the economy.
The Transportation Security Administration is forecasting Friday to be the busiest day of the holiday weekend, with more than 2.7 million passengers expected to pass through its security checkpoints at more than 400 airports nationwide.
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"We anticipate this Labor Day holiday weekend will be busy, with passenger volumes nearly 11% higher than last year — volumes that already exceeded 2019 Labor Day holiday travel volumes," TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in a statement.
The federal agency has screened 227 million passengers since Memorial Day. Over the past three months, TSA has screened an average of 2.5 million passengers per day, making Friday an especially hectic day for travelers.
The airline industry has roared back after a difficult few years. The pre-pandemic record for daily TSA screenings was 2.795 million on July 2, 2019, according to TSA data. That record was broken this summer on June 30, when officers processed 2.884 million passengers.
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Pekoske, the only Senate-confirmed official at the Department of Homeland Security to have been held over since the Trump administration, said the agency is well staffed and retaining officers as a result of the recent boost in pay approved by Congress. Earlier this summer, TSA employees received a 30% pay raise, which Pekoske said was one reason attrition has declined.
"We are prepared for the increase in travel volumes and are working closely with our airline and airport partners to make sure we are maintaining our wait time standards of 30 minutes and under for standard screening lanes, and 10 minutes and under for TSA PreCheck lanes," Pekoske said.