The previous 2.99M record was set just last month.
The high volume of travelers in the United States passing through airport security after their Fourth of July getaways helped set a new single-day screening record for the Transportation Security Administration.
On Sunday, July 7, TSA officers screened 3,013,413 people at checkpoints nationwide, which surpassed the previous record of 2.99 million set on June 23, 2024, the agency announced Monday.
More people flew on an airplane in a single day in the U.S. on Sunday than on any other day in history since TSA was founded in November 2001.
The fucking airlines are cutting corners on HVAC, too. Do y’all even remember that flights used to be freezing cold start to finish?
Now you sit on the hot tarmac at the gate for an hour with AC off to “save power”, sit on the tarmac in line to takeoff for an hour, sit in a hot humid tube for 8 hours… I used to bring down jackets on flights. Now I wear a t-shirt and still end the flight sticky and sweaty.
Same carrier, same lane. Not like cutting corners on HVAC is a literal health risk or anything.
Although to be fair, cutting safety features in favor of profit is nothing new for the industry since Reagan.
It’s mostly the airport and local regulations that prevent plane cooling today.
If a plane uses ground air, it’s usually only a few degrees cooler than the plane. For example in F, if the plane lands and has all the windows shut and is 80F which is too hot already, they hook up to ground air which will blow in 70F to 72F air. You aren’t cooling a plane in the direct sunlight with 200 people breathing with a 10F max temperature differential. It’s just not possible.
In the old days, you’d drop the APU and run the PAC which would actually air condition the air and keep the plane cool. Even in the hot sun. But this cost about 20 to 30 gallons an hour and was a big noisy stinky polluting engine running anytime the plane was on the ground. Plus the maintenance of the APU and such for hours run.
If you travel outside the US and Europe, the APU and PAC is still used as normal. But it is not environmentally friendly. However neither is the actual giant plane. 30 gallons is a leak for the hour on the ground compared to what’s burned just to get air born.