Airports Experience a New Spike in Travelers

By: Jerry Wang

On July Fourth weekend, American airports experienced the highest number of screened passengers since COVID began. However, thousands of flights were also canceled or delayed due to a shortage of pilots and airline workers.

Lisa Farbstien, a TSA spokesperson, tweeted, "@TSA officers screened 2,490,490 people at airport security checkpoints nationwide yesterday, Friday, July 1." Compared to the average 1.6 million passengers checked in 2021 daily, this is a huge improvement.

A surge in flyers is a huge step towards escaping the pandemic restrictions. Travel is a blessing since it provides an opportunity to unite with friends and family. Traveling has even been shown to be an impetus for increased health, satisfaction in life, and subjective happiness while decreasing exhaustion and stress.

Despite the advancement, the delays and cancellation of flights proves to be a big issue. 6,600 flights were delayed and 464 were canceled on July 1st. This resulted in 28.8% of all scheduled flights to experience some sort of issue.

Currently, there are even more roadblocks in travel. Tarick Ali had been carefully planning his wedding for over a year but had his plans ruined since his luggage never showed up. He said, "It’s just absolutely mind-boggling what is happening. It’s going to ruin everything we had planned."

Thankfully, understaffing and flight cancellations are predicted by FlightAware's spokeswoman to become under control by the fall. As of now, United States Secretary of Transport, Pete Buttigieg has confirmed that airlines are required to offer "cash refunds for canceled flights" even if they won’t give out points or miles as compensation.

Sadly, some countries still restrict travel from foreign countries. Some of these include China, Turkmenistan, and Libya. With most of the world starting to allow travel, with some mandates, it is only a matter of time before the whole world can be on the move once again.

article: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/record-july-4th-travel-weekend-thousands-flights-delayed-cancelled-rcna36497