Memorial Day weekend sees surge in air travel, including at Tampa International Airport

The Memorial Day weekend has produced the two busiest days for U.S. air travel since early March 2020.

About 1.96 million people passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints on Friday, and 1.90 million did so on Monday, according to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

Tuesday was also expected to be busy, as travelers returned home after the Memorial Day weekend. Analysts expect travel to continue rising slowly now that many Americans are vaccinated against COVID-19 and airlines are adding more flights.

In May, an average of 1.6 million people a day were screened at U.S. airports, down one-third from the 2.4 million people a day who went through TSA checkpoints in May 2019.

At Tampa International Airport, traffic was up 626 percent in May compared to a year earlier. Memorial Day weekend played a big part, with 236,000 passengers traveling through the airport.

Traffic through the airport has been building. Officials are once again encouraging outbound passengers to arrive two hours before their flight.