US airlines: FIFA World Cup lift is not enough as TSA traffic slips 2.2% over the last 7 days

Research evidence excerpt

US airlines: FIFA World Cup lift is not enough as TSA traffic slips 2.2% over the last 7 days

7 July 2026

U.S. Airlines

US airlines: FIFA World Cup lift is not enough as TSA traffic slips

2.2% over the last 7 days

Today’s note summarizes airport level screening activity and changes to airline capacity. David Vernon

+1 917 344 8333 Download of underlying data can be found here.

david.vernon@bernsteinsg.com

This week’s TSA data point to a modest softening in traffic momentum, with the

Justine Weiss trailing 7-day average running 2.2% below last year (Exhibit 1). Weighting screening

+1 917 344 8433 data by capacity shows Southwest and Alaska most exposed to weaker foot traffic trends justine.weiss@bernsteinsg.com

at roughly 3.8% and 5.2% declines, respectively, and both JetBlue and Frontier are

Specialist Sales down around 3%. United and American are faring slightly better, down 1.3% and 1.4%

respectively (Exhibit 2)

Steve Song

+1 917 344 8401 Across the eastern U.S., the major Florida nodes are running below last year, except steve.song@bernsteinsg.com

for MIA, which is slightly up, suggesting that absent the World Cup effect we likely

would have seen even weaker foot traffic in that zone (Exhibit 4). Outside Florida, the

broader picture is also softer, with key Northeast gateways such as JFK, LGA and EWR all

posting declines in foot traffic and ORD standing out as the only large hub with a significant

increase in volumes.

The western U.S. shows a similar pattern, with only one larger airport (SFO) posting

a notable YoY improvement in screenings over the last 7 days, while the rest of

the region is characterized by very low to no increases YoY or outright declines (Exhibit

5). Big hubs like LAS, LAX, DFW and MSP are all seeing weaker traffic versus last year,