Post-pandemic “revenge travel” — taking a trip not possible during the pandemic — was apparently at full throttle at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport over the annual fall break known as MEA weekend in Minnesota.
MEA weekend travel numbers nearly break record at MSP airport
The Thursday of the annual fall weekend getaway for teacher conferences was second only to Super Bowl Monday in 2018.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
November 1, 2024 at 4:34PM
Oct. 17 — a Thursday — was the busiest day of the long weekend for Minnesota Teacher Association (MEA) conferences with some 52,660 people clearing the checkpoints at the airport, said Jeff Lea, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), which operates MSP.
That was the second-busiest day ever at MSP — surpassed only by Feb. 5, 2018, the day after Super Bowl LII was held in Minneapolis, Lea said Friday. A total of 60,883 people passed through its checkpoints that day, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
K-12 schools across Minnesota close for the annual union-sponsored teachers conference, so many families travel during the break.
Some 296,386 passengers cleared security at both of MSP’s terminals for this year’s MEA weekend. That compares with 271,467 last year and 279,328 in 2019 — before the COVID-19 pandemic decimated air travel. The seven-day tallies start Tuesday before the weekend and ends the following Monday.
The numbers were first reported by the Thrifty Traveler website.
The railroad company blamed the Saturday night delay on switch issues.
