U.S. airport passenger data recorded by the Transportation Security Administration reveals 2023 volume is starting out stronger than 2022.
Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality market analytics at CoStar Group, said in an email interview that this improvement is not surprising since the first quarter of 2022 dealt with COVID-19 variant omicron's effects on travel.
Compared to 2019, full-year TSA passenger data for 2022 showed "remarkable recovery in passenger volume" after 2021, which was "the worst year ever recorded," he said.
The recovery in 2022 points to continued leisure and corporate travel demand recovery, he said.
Some days and periods in 2022 were still well below 2019, however, likely due to the calendar shift and lack of demand, Freitag added.