US airlines carried three million passengers in April, a staggering 96 per cent decline amid the coronavirus pandemic and flight restrictions, the Transportation Department said.

The department said US airlines carried about 2.8m domestic passengers and 132,000 international passengers. International passengers fell 99pc over April 2019 as the US imposed flight restrictions on many international visitors.

Total US airline passengers were the lowest since 1974 when the government began collecting monthly data. By comparison, there were 76.1m total US airline passengers in April 2019.