Soaring summer: Delta breaks its record for passengers carried in a day

More people flew Delta last Friday than any previous day in the airline's history, as 624,000 revenue customers departed on flights to destinations around the globe aboard 5,903 Delta and Delta Connection flights. That was like carrying the entire population of Baltimore in a single day.

The record enplanements beat the previous No. 1 day-June 30 this year-by about 6,500 customers. Delta first eclipsed the 600,000 customer mark on July 31, 2015.

"Summer is our World Series," said Dave Holtz, Delta's Senior Vice President-Operations and Customer Center. "Our employees are knocking it out of the park. We're getting our customers to their vacation spots, connecting people with their families and providing very reliable business travel. We are busier, yet more reliable this summer than we ever have, delivering upon our promise to be the most reliable airline in industry."

The airline record comes in the busiest operational month of the year, with near-daily enplanements above a half-million and about 17 million customers expected to fly in July. In fact, of the top 10 planned busiest operational days of the year, eight of them fall in July, debunking the oft-reported story that the days leading up to and following Thanksgiving are the busiest of the year.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, Delta anticipates flying roughly 5,800 flights on the Sunday after Turkey Day, so it won't even make the top 10 busiest days of the year by flight count.