Record number of travelers expected to pass through Sea-Tac Airport



SEATTLE -- A record number of travelers are expected to pass through Sea-Tac Airport this holiday season.

Nationwide, TSA projects it will screen 6 percent more travelers compared to this same period last year. Locally, TSA at Sea-Tac expects to screen 11% more departing travelers than last year’s end-of-year holiday season.

At airports across the country, projected passenger volumes for the end-of-year holiday travel season will average around 2.3 million travelers per day.

Traffic picks up rapidly beginning Wednesday, Dec. 19 and continues through Monday, Dec. 24.

Many travelers have planned their return trips starting Wednesday, Dec. 26 through the end of the year. The two busiest travel days of the holiday season nationally are projected to be Friday, Dec. 21, and Wednesday, Dec. 26, when TSA expects to screen more than 2.7 million people each day.

These days may tie the record for TSA’s busiest day ever, which occurred the Sunday after Thanksgiving on Nov. 25, 2018.

Current projections for Sea-Tac Airport show that departing passenger volumes begin to increase Wednesday, Dec. 19 with the busiest day expected to be Thursday, Dec. 20.

Below are the day-by-day projections of the number of passengers TSA at Sea-Tac expects to screen through the through the end of next week: