Pandemic has set the number of air travellers back decades

The number of Americans getting on airplanes has sunk to a level not seen in more than 60 years as people shelter in their homes to avoid catching or spreading the new coronavirus.

The Transportation Security Administration screened fewer than 100,000 people on Tuesday, a drop of 95% from a year ago.

The official tally of 97,130 people who passed through TSA checkpoints exaggerates the number of travellers if that is possible because it includes some airline crew members and people still working at shops inside airport security perimeters.

Historical daily numbers only go back so far, but the nation averaged 97,000 passengers a day in 1954, according to figures from trade group Airlines for America. It was the dawn of the jet age. The de Havilland Comet, the first commercial jetliner, was just a few years old, and Boeing was running test flights with the jet that would become the iconic 707.

As air travel became safer and more affordable, the passenger numbers grew nearly every year. There was no commercial air travel in the U.S. for several days after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and people were slow to get back on planes in following months.

It could be longer this time. Polling firm Public Opinion Strategies said that fewer than half the Americans it surveyed about 10 days ago say they will get on a plane within six months of the spread of the virus flattening.

TSA, which was created after the 9/11 attacks, has been chronicling the plunge in air traffic, posting numbers on how many people its officers screen each day.

On March 1, it was nearly 2.3 million almost the same as a year earlier. The one-way roller coaster ride a sheer downward scream began in the second week of March and slowed only in the last several days, when there wasn't much more room to drop.

The falloff is amazing to see, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst. The good news is that it shows people are taking shelter-in-place orders seriously."