U.S. air travel drops to historic low

Transportation Security Administration is now screening just under 95,000 passengers – a roughly 96%-drop from this time last year. The number of Americans getting on airplanes right now is the lowest that it has been in six decades.

Due to social distancing and shelter-in-place guidelines surrounding the outbreak of the coronavirus, the national average of daily flyers consistently dipping below 100,000 – a number similar to those in 1954  when commercials jetliners were just a few years old.

Commercial air travel has since then essentially increases every year, with the except of the period after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. It took about two years after the 9/11 attack, in which four commercial airliners were hijacked, for air-travel numbers to begin growing again.

Now, some Americans are saying that they may hesitate to get back on a plane for up to six months after the flattening of the novel coronavirus.

United Airlines says it’s losing $100 million a day, while Delta says its figure is $60 million. All major U.S. airlines have applied for federal relief to get them through the pandemic. Even with government dollars, airlines say their businesses will have shrunk on the other side of the coronavirus.