Labor Day 2024: 17 million Americans traveling this weekend, says TSA

Travelers stand in a security line at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)

WASHINGTON – This Labor Day weekend caps off a very busy summer for the Transportation and Security Administration (TSA), which reported performing 239.8 million screenings since Memorial Day.

TSA expects this weekend to be the busiest Labor Day travel period on record, with 17 million people traveling from Thursday, Aug. 29 to Wednesday, Sept. 4.

Air travel volumes this summer are the highest the agency has seen in its history. The agency expects passenger volumes to be 8.5 percent higher than last year during this time, and has already screened 239.8 million people since Memorial Day weekend, which is an average of  2.7 million per day.

The top 10 busiest travel days in the agency’s history have all occurred this year since May 2024. The agency reached a new milestone on July 7, when Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) screened more than 3 million people in a single day.

“People are traveling more than ever this summer and TSA along with our airline and airport partners stand ready to close the busiest summer travel period on record during this Labor Day weekend,” said TSA Administrator David Pekoske.

TSA said it is staffed to meet its wait time standards, which are 10 minutes and under in TSA PreCheck® lanes and 30 minutes and under in standard screening lanes.

With this increase in travel volumes, TSA recommends airline passengers travel with ease by enrolling in the TSA PreCheck Trusted Traveler Program, where members do not need to remove shoes, belts, 3-1-1 liquids, laptops, food items, and light jackets at the checkpoint. TSA PreCheck members are reminded to make sure their Known Traveler Number (KTN) is in their airline reservation so it appears on their boarding pass.

REAL ID will go into effect in less than nine months, starting May 7, 2025. Airline passengers will soon need a REAL ID-compliant form of identification when flying.

If the driver’s license is not REAL ID-compliant, they must have another form of acceptable identification, such as a US passport. REAL ID driver’s licenses and identification cards have a small star in the upper right corner indicating they meet federal regulations that establish minimum security standards.