Passengers screened in 2025, a record year
907M
2026 to date vs the same weekdays of 2025
-0.9%
Busiest day on record (Sun 30 Nov 2025)
3.13M
Days above 2.8M passengers in 2025
70
Is demand still growing?
No. Volume set a record in 2025, but 2026 is 0.9% behind 2025 on matching weekdays. Annual growth slowed from +5.3% in 2024 to +0.3% in 2025 and has now turned negative.
Where is the pressure?
In the peaks, not the average day. Days above 2.8M passengers went from 4 in 2023 to 49 in 2024 and 70 in 2025. Checkpoints have to be sized for those days, not for the yearly average.
What should we do?
Plan 2027 from a flat baseline, not the post-pandemic growth curve. Cover the predictable peak days with flexible capacity instead of adding permanent headcount.
Fewest passengers in one day (14 Apr 2020)
113,147
Trips not taken in 2020-2022 vs 2019 levels
859M
Month demand came back to stay (within 2% of 2019)
Jan 2023
Busiest weekday (Sun) vs quietest (Tue)
+23%
Busiest month (Jun) vs quietest (Jan)
+29%
Weekly swing as a share of the seasonal swing
80%
Sun, Mon, Thu and Fri run above average; Tue, Wed and Sat run below. The 23% gap between a Sun and a Tue is almost as big as the 29% gap between Jun and Jan.
A single week swings nearly as much as the whole year. Rosters planned only by season leave Tuesdays overstaffed and Sundays short, so shifts need to flex within the week as well as across the year.
Days since 2024 more than 15% off the expected level
41
of those were caused by the holiday calendar
93%
Worst unplanned day (Sun 25 Jan 2026) vs expected
-45%
| Date | Passengers | Expected | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun 25 Jan 2026 | 1,313,323 | 2,395,451 | -45% |
| Mon 23 Feb 2026 | 1,996,320 | 2,452,652 | -19% |
| Thu 09 Jan 2025 | 2,033,464 | 2,398,948 | -15% |
A day's expected level is the same weekday a year earlier, scaled by the last 28 days' trend. Days more than 15% off are flagged, and counted as calendar-driven when the day, or the day it is compared with, falls near a holiday.
93% of the big swings are plannable from the calendar. Only the orange days, led by the late January 2026 winter storm, need a contingency plan.
Growth in 2024
+5.3%
Growth in 2025
+0.3%
Months in a row below the year before
8
2026 was running 3.6M passengers ahead of 2025 in April. From April on, every month came in lower than a year earlier, the worst being August (-4.2%). The year is now 6.7M behind.
The open question for planning is whether this is a cyclical dip or a new normal. Either way, next year's forecast should be built from 2026 data, not extended from the 2024 trend.