The Christmas Eve figure does not signal the end of the holiday travel rush, but rather a pause before people who left town for the Friday holiday begin coming home. TSA numbers show that in the last week, 7,189,521 people were screened at TSA checkpoints.

According to a CNN report made by Pete Muntean, Christmas Eve follows six straight days of US air travel numbers near or more than a million passengers. On Wednesday, 1,191,123 travelers set a record of the pandemic. The number of people who flew on Christmas Eve is a third of the same day a year ago when more than 2.5 million people flew.

The TSA number of people flying across the country show a contrast from the Centers for Disease Control warning to keep passengers home. “Travel can increase your chance of spreading and getting COVID-19,” it said. “Postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.”

New fears

The increase in air travel demonstrated by TSA is stoking new fears from health experts that there will be another spike in coronavirus infections, similar to a spike recorded after Thanksgiving.

The low travel numbers forced US airlines to lay off tens of thousands of employees in the fall. But executives from United (UAL) and American Airlines (AAL) announced plans Tuesday to bring back thousands of their furloughed workers in response to Congress passing its latest Covid-19 relief bill.

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The new law includes an extension of the airline industry’s Payroll Support Program, which sets aside $15 billion in assistance to bring back more than 32,000 United and American Airlines employees who were furloughed in September. The companies say the additional funds are enough to pay those workers through March 31.

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This emphasis on security is a serious concern for the President of the Air Line Pilots Association Capt. Joe Depete who asks airlines to adopt safety protocols before resuming their activities.

The head of the nation’s largest pilot union said on a CBSPhilly interview that so far has over 300 pilots tested for the coronavirus and there have been three deaths.

“We believe we’re testing about the average right now, we have deep concerns about that,” Depete said.

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The Air Line Pilots Association is following a set of guidelines issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which are basically guidelines from the CDC, on how to handle the pandemic.

Depete says there needs to be a mandated standardized approach for all airlines to follow.

“Some airlines really do a good job, some airlines do not do such a great job,” Depete said. “The virus doesn’t care whether you did a good job in one area and have a gaping hole in the other. We need a mandated standardized approach to dealing with the COVID crisis.”

His request focuses on the need for a coherent body of measures that can ensure the success of the security protocols.

“What we need is the FAA do their job. It makes no sense when dealing with a pandemic, to have a varying patchwork of compliances.”

This includes a regulation for the use of protective equipment, the administration of coronavirus testing and regular cleaning and disinfection of aircraft.

He said that many of the measures to be implemented could have been enforced earlier to prevent the spread of the virus. He also claimed for leadership in the midst of the crisis since the current situation cannot be addressed without coherent lines of action.

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