TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa International Airport is seeing a huge increase in passengers and on Tuesday, the airport is holding a job fair in response.

It’s the third job fair the airport’s held this year.

This time they’re looking to fill 150 positions, all in retail and restaurants.

“We've seen travel come back in a big way.  As you can see, we have a ton of people traveling, and we need to keep the restaurants and shops open for the full shift,” said Emily Nipps with the Tampa International Airport.

The days of 20,000 people traveling through TPA are long gone, and officials said now, they’re averaging about 60,000 passengers each day which is comparable to record breaking numbers in 2019.

In order to accommodate all of the additional people, the airport has to staff back up to pre-pandemic levels to offer people the customer service they expect when they travel through TPA. Even expansion projects that were put on hold during the pandemic are back in full swing, and airport officials said they expect it will only get busier.

“We expected recovery this year, but I think it's been quicker than we thought it would be," Nipps said. "I think all airports were not expecting this quick of a recovery. It's great, it's good to see people traveling again, but it really happened very fast.  We do expect a busy summer, and we'll have a busy holiday season as well."

The in-person job fair will be from 9am-1pm on Tuesday, and a virtual job fair from 2pm-4pm.