Following the historic slump in air travel during the Covid-19 pandemic, passenger volume at U.S. airports has gradually recovered, roughly matching pre-pandemic levels in 2023 and exceeding it in 2024 and 2025. In fact, 2025 was the busiest year ever at U.S. airports with an average of 2.48 million travelers passing through TSA checkpoints each day.
Despite the latest surge in ticket prices – airline fares have risen 12.6 percent since January and more than 25 percent since July 2025, 2026 is on track to match or even exceed last year’s passenger volume. As of August 11, TSA agents screened an average of 2.49 million passengers per day this year, trailing last year’s number over the same period by less than 8,000 passengers per day.
While airline fares have been impacted heavily by this year’s inflation surge caused in large part by the Iran war and its effect on global oil prices, they haven’t risen as much as overall price levels in the longer run. Since February 2020, the last month before the pandemic hit, the all-items Consumer Price Index in the United States has increased more than 28 percent. The sub-index for airline fares has only risen 16 percent.
