Daily record of 2.9M air travelers recorded Sunday, capping busy holiday week

Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Nearly 3 million holiday travelers flowed through the nation's airports on Sunday, breaking a single-day record, the Transportation Security Administration reported.

TSA officials announced Sunday's total of 2.9 million people passing through airport security checkpoints represented a new agency standard.

"My sincere appreciation to our TSA employees who worked diligently during the Thanksgiving weekend," administrator David Pekoske said in a social media post. "Officers screened over 2.9M passengers at airport security checkpoints yesterday -- the most ever screened on record. Thank you for always being vigilant & focused on our mission."

Sunday's busy travel day capped a Thanksgiving week in which several airlines announced some of their highest-ever holiday season passenger figures.

American Airlines announced Monday it flew 6.5 million passengers on more than 59,000 flights during the holiday week, marking its highest-ever load factor for those dates.

The carrier also canceled fewer flights than any other Thanksgiving period in its history -- just 55 out of more than 59,400 scheduled flights -- with nearly all the cancellations weather-related.

United Airlines said earlier this month it also expected a record-setting Thanksgiving travel season with more than 5.9 million people predicted to fly the airline between Nov. 17 and Wednesday.

Official Delta Airlines projections put the total estimated customer count at between 6.2 million and 6.4 million from Nov. 17 through Tuesday, averaging 515,000 to 530,000 customers per day.

The TSA had likewise anticipated record throngs at airports, advising two weeks ago that it anticipated to screen 30 million passengers from Nov. 17 through Tuesday.

The agency accurately projected to screen 2.9 million passengers on Sunday.