air travel is matching levels seen before the pandemic ahead of the busiest days of the easter weekend—the start of spring break for some customers it could offer a boost to airlines if they can handle the strain passenger volumes so far this week have been tracking around or slightly above the equivalent weekdays in 2019 according to transportation security administration data sunday was the third busiest day of the year so far close to 26 million people passed through us airport checkpoints the daily number of people going through checkpoints has now surpassed two million for 30 consecutive days the first time that has happened since 2019 the federal aviation administration said thursday is set to be the busiest travel day of the holiday period with 51252 flights expected across the us friday won’t be far behind with the faa forecasting 51125 flights the only thing preventing that from being a guaranteed positive for airlines is the possibility of delays and cancellations the winter holiday period was blighted by widespread flight disruption following severe weather more than 30000 flights were canceled between dec 21 and jan 2 according to data from the flighttracking website flightaware as of 8 am eastern thursday disruption appeared to be minimal no major us airline had canceled more than 1 of its scheduled flights us airline stocks had an impressive start to the year but have slipped back over the past month monday’s surge in oil prices the result of plans by opec and other exporters to cut production was the latest factor sending the shares lower the nyse arca global airline index rose more than 16 in the first three months of 2023 but has fallen 10 since then however demand is staying strong and airfares remain elevated suggesting that the sector can regain some of that lost ground the spring and summer are historically strong for airlines united airlines ticker ual said thursday that international bookings jumped 15 in march compared with the same month last year pointing toward strong summer demand as a result united is expanding its overseas schedule by 25 for this summer flying to 114 international cities “with unprecedented demand for travel overseas we’ll have more service to popular cities while also adding new and unique destinations for customers to explore” said patrick quayle senior vice president of global network planning and alliances