OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — With new COVID-19 cases declining and much of the country vaccinated, this long Memorial Day weekend is feeling a bit more like old times.
Since the pandemic started, the travel industry was hit hard. But if you were hitting the airways this weekend, it may have brought back memories from a pre-pandemic world.
A TSA spokesperson says 1.96 million people passed through TSA checkpoints last Friday, setting a new pandemic air travel record.
It is the first time since the pandemic hit that passenger volume topped 1.9 million in a single day since march 2020. Steve McCoy, chief information and development officer for the Omaha Airport Authority, said they are seeing their number of travelers grow weekly and airlines are noticing.
"We are seeing a number of flights returning to the schedules. In fact, just today Allegiant is launching, restarting their service to Destin, Florida. In the month of June, we have new flights also from Allegiant to LAX. We've got Delta returning flights to LaGuardia and we have Southwest returning flights to Tampa and Nashville. So it’s all very positive news for Omaha travelers,” McCoy said.
Right now, Eppley is averaging about 6,500 departing passengers every day. In 2019 at this time, Eppley was seeing about 8,500 travelers a day, so numbers are still slightly down from pre-pandemic times.
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