A record-breaking summer for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was taken up a notch on Sunday when the federal agency screened more than 3 million passengers at airports across the United States for the first time in its 22-year history.
Preliminary figures released by the TSA reveal that security officers screened a total of 3,013,413 passengers on Sunday as people started to travel back home following the July 4 weekend holidays.
The latest record comes just a few weeks after the TSA beat its previous busiest-ever day, which was only set on June 23 when the agency screened 2.99 million passengers.
TSA Administrator David Pekoske warned that this July 4 weekend would be the agency’s busiest ever and urged passengers to get security ready to avoid delays at screening checkpoints.
The weekend appears to have passed off largely without incident with no major delays or congestion reported across some of the busiest airports in the United States.
Sunday’s record-breaking figures are a far cry from when passenger numbers hit their nadir on April 14, 2020, when the TSA screened just 87,534 passengers as the pandemic dramatically changed ingrained travel habits.
It would be more than a year later, on July 2, 2021, that the number of passengers screened at TSA airport security checkpoints would surpass pre-pandemic levels.
Along with screening more passengers than ever before, the TSA seems to be getting slightly better at detecting banned weapons. Last year, the TSA intercepted more guns at airport checkpoints than in any other year, with a record 6,737 firearms prevented from being taken illegally onboard commercial airline flights.
That being said, the TSA has faced scrutiny for failing to stop passengers accidentally taking stray bullets in their carry-ons on international flights. Unfortunately, a growing number of passengers have faced criminal prosecution in foreign countries after the bullets, which would be legally held in the US, were discovered as they tried to return home.
In the Turks and Caicos, several Americans faced the threat of up to 12 years imprisonment after breaking the British territory’s strict gun control laws. The island’s local government had to press the judiciary to make exceptions for the American tourists in the face of intense media scrutiny.
