Tulsa International Airport recorded fewer than half the number of Thanksgiving passengers this year compared to 2019, but thousands still flew despite the dire warnings of public health experts against holiday travel as the COVID-19 pandemic worsens.
From Monday, Nov. 23, through Sunday, Nov. 29, the airport saw 16,283 passengers pass through security checkpoints, down about 52% from 34,081 over the same holiday period last year, according to Andrew Pierini, the airport's director of air service and marketing.
"It was definitely one of the busier weeks, but it still was down 52%, so although we saw almost a peak in our passenger traffic, it was still down considerably from where we were last year," Pierini said.
Pierini said Thanksgiving was the second-busiest period in terms of passenger traffic since the pandemic took hold. More passengers flew through the airport around the Columbus Day holiday than Thanksgiving, he said.
Pierini said the number of travelers was about what the airport had expected based on previous weeks, and that travel has "flattened out" recently as coronavirus cases have risen locally and nationally. He said Tulsa International is seeing about 10% more passengers than the national average, but that the airport doesn't know what to expect in the weeks and months to come.
"That's kind of the golden question we all want answered, but it will be interesting to see once the vaccines start going into production and into the market, how that affects travel, but for now we don't have any sort of forward-looking in terms of how things are going to be coming up here," Pierini said.
The federal Centers for Disease Control had advised against unnecessary travel over Thanksgiving due to the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus, recommending Americans limit their holiday celebrations to only members of their immediate households. Despite the guidance, NPR reports Wednesday was the highest-traffic day for commercial air travel in the U.S. since March.
