The average for the same days in 2019 was 2.3 million per day, so while air travel was indeed down, it wasn't down very significantly, only about 13%. Obviously only a minority of the population acted prudently by refraining from air travel.
You can see from the graph how air passenger travel did not start to decline in earnest until after Mar 13 when Trump declared a national emergency. People simply abandoned air travel after that, out of fear.
Think what might have been had Trump only done it sooner.
Air passenger travel throughout February and March ensured that every corner of America would be deeply penetrated by China novel coronavirus 2019 because millions of people helped spread it everyday, everywhere.
We today have over 500,000 cases and over 20,000 dead in a matter of just weeks with the American economy also on its knees, all because Trump ignored pandemic warnings from his own administration as late as Jan 30.
So in exchange for letting a privileged minority of well-heeled jet-setters continue to travel at the beginning of the epidemic, the rest of us can't even go to church tomorrow for Easter services.
Let that sink in.
Sad doesn't even begin to describe it.
