Americans shatter air travel record in 2025 despite surprising shift in when they fly
Americans set a new record for domestic air travel in 2025 even as travel patterns shifted, a new analysis found.
AAA Northeast examined several years of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint data and found that over 904 million travelers went through a TSA checkpoint last year, an increase of 2.57 million passengers compared with 2024.
That figure marks a new annual record for domestic air travel, though the year-over-year increase was under 1% growth – much cooler than in prior years.
By comparison, the number of passengers going through TSA checkpoints was up 5.3% in 2024 from 2023, which had a 13% growth from 2022.
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Fewer travelers flew on Mondays and Tuesdays in 2025, with passenger volume declining by 0.39% and 3%, while more travelers caught flights on Thursdays and Sundays with growth of 1.89% and 1.87%, respectively.
AAA's report noted that the data could reflect "softness in business travel early in the workweek and continued strength in leisure travel, which tends to occur closer to weekends."
The data also showed that 2025 had lower passenger volumes in the first part of the year when compared with 2024, with four of the first six months of last year showing declining growth compared with 2024.
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January 2025 saw passenger volumes rise by 1.75%, though February experienced a 2.97% decline. A 0.17% decline in March and 0.23% gain in April were followed by declines of 1.48% in May and 0.45% in June.
Passenger volumes rebounded around the Fourth of July holiday, with the month of July seeing 1.16% growth, and the momentum carried over through October when volumes were up 3.63% year-over-year.
The holiday travel season was slightly slower in 2025 than in 2024, as volumes were down 0.15% in November and 0.08% in December. AAA suggested the decline could've been due to the effects of the government shutdown, although it added that travel during the actual shutdown was 2.2% higher than the prior year after a 6.2% decline in the final shutdown's final week.
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AAA also noted that there was an uptick in the number of extremely busy days with over 3 million passengers passing through TSA checkpoints.
There were eight such days in 2025, as May 23, June 22, July 6, July 13, July 20, July 27, Oct. 10 and Nov. 30 all saw passenger volumes top 3 million. By contrast, there were only two such days in 2024: July 7 and Dec. 1.
TSA also set the record for largest passenger volume twice in 2025: June 22 had 3.09 million passengers screened, while Nov. 30 broke the new record with 3.13 million passengers.