Experts have said that airline travel has slowly started to tick upward, but you don't realize how slowly that is until you see the numbers.
And those numbers continue to remain stunningly low in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. airlines carried 89 percent fewer passengers in the month of May compared with last year, better than it was in the month of April but not even close to what it was just 12 months ago.
What a difference a year makes, indeed.
The numbers were released by the Department of Transportation and reported by Reuters News Service.
The 20 largest U.S. airlines carried 7.9 million passengers in May, more than double the 3 million who flew during the month of April. But when viewed in context to May of 2019 it's staggering. Airlines flew 74.8 million passengers a year ago, almost 10 times what was reported for May of this year.
The final numbers:
Total: 9 million passengers, down 89 percent from May 2019 (74.8 million passengers)
Domestic: 7.8 million passengers, down 88 percent from May 2019 (65.3 million)
International: 182,000, down 98 percent from May 2019 (9.9 million)
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