Alternative-data platform HiddenMetrix reported on September 21 that TSA screened 2,700,658 passengers nationwide the previous day—the highest Monday volume since Labor Day and a 24 percent jump over the equivalent weekday in 2024. Analysts attribute the surge to a rebound in international conferences scheduled earlier in the fall to avoid summer heatwaves and hurricane disruptions. Corporate travel managers say pent-up demand for in-person client meetings is colliding with limited seat growth, pushing average U.S.–Europe business-class fares 11 percent higher than last September. Capacity constraints are especially acute at secondary gateways such as Raleigh-Durham and Austin, where carriers retired wide-body fleets during the pandemic. From a mobility perspective, the data suggest companies should lock in Q4 travel now to avoid surge pricing around October trade shows and early-November board meetings. The figures also assuage concerns that remote-work trends would permanently suppress domestic business travel; instead, volumes are trending back toward the record 3.1 million-passenger days set in November 2025. TSA plans to pilot additional CAT-X identity-verification scanners at Chicago-O’Hare and Denver before Thanksgiving to cope with expected holiday crowds. Employers enrolled in TSA PreCheck for business travelers should remind employees to renew memberships, as nearly 1 million accounts will expire between now and year-end.
Source: HiddenMetrix Data Feed
