TSA, which was created after the 9/11 attacks, has
been chronicling the plunge in air traffic, posting
numbers on how many people its officers screen
each day. On March 1, it was nearly 2.3 million —
almost the same as a year earlier. The one-way
roller coaster ride — a sheer downward scream
— began in the second week of March and
slowed only in the last several days, when there
wasn’t much more room to drop.
“The falloff is amazing to see,” said Henry
Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst. “The good
news is that it shows people are taking shelter-
in-place orders seriously.”
Some of the people still traveling are health
care professionals on their way to pandemic hot
spots such as New York, where they will help in
the treatment of COVID-19 patients. A few are
traveling to be with family.
The nation’s largest flight attendant union, which
is worried about the safety of its members who
are still flying, is demanding that the government
ban all leisure travel. Representatives at several
airlines said they don’t know how many leisure
travelers are left, since they don’t routinely ask
people why they are flying.