Expectations were met on Friday as travelers showed up at airports across the country, with the Transportation Security Administration announcing that it screened more than 2.95 million airline passengers, a new single-day record.
In a post on X, the TSA shared on Saturday that it screened 2,951,163 individuals at airport checkpoints nationwide on Friday, beating a previous record set on the Sunday after last year’s Thanksgiving.
“If you flew yesterday, congratulations, you were part of a record-setting day!” Lisa Farbstein, a spokesperson for the TSA, shared in a post.
The TSA had predicted that Friday would be the busiest day for air travel ahead of the start of Memorial Day weekend, with nearly 3 million people estimated to pass through airport checkpoints.
However, Friday wasn’t the only busy day this weekend, as the TSA shared that it screened just under 2.9 million people on Thursday, good enough for the number three spot on the agency’s top 10 busiest travel days of all time list.
The weekend still isn’t over, but AAA has also estimated that road travel this holiday weekend will break records, with an estimated 43.8 million people taking to the road to travel 50 miles or more from Thursday to Monday.
Compared to 2023, that number is an increase of 4%.
“We haven’t seen Memorial Day weekend travel numbers like these in almost 20 years,” Paula Twidale, the senior vice president of the travel division at AAA, said in a statement. “We’re projecting an additional one million travelers this holiday weekend compared to 2019, which not only means we’re exceeding pre-pandemic levels but also signals a very busy summer travel season ahead.”