Ridership at American Airlines fell nearly 22.8%, while JetBlue experienced a 9.43% drop in the March comparison. As a result, the number of seats offered to passengers in March dropped from 701,846 to 613,954, a reduction of 12.5%, the report found.
“With the economy and overall air traffic across the country, hopefully we’ve seen the bottom,” airport Commissioner Charles Lombardo said. “We hope that the trend will start going back up.”
The sharp declines in March closely mirror those seen in January and February, when passenger counts decreased by 20.57% and 21.62%, respectively, compared with 2008.
The number of commercial airline passengers at Bob Hope Airport has fallen every month since April 2008, with double-digit drops recorded every month since July.
The drop in passengers is not unique to Bob Hope Airport, said outgoing Commissioner Carl Povilaitis.
The Federal Aviation Administration in its 16-year forecast for 2009-2025 predicted U.S. aircraft operations this year would drop 5.7% from 2008 levels.
Beginning in 2010, the agency expects operations to grow at an average annual rate of 1.5% for the remainder of the forecast period, the report stated.
Despite some early signs that air traffic nationwide has started to stabilize, airline executives, including Southwest Chief Executive Gary Kelly, said last month that they were not ready to call it the bottom.
“It’s really going to be dependent on where the economy goes,” Povilaitis said.
One indicator that Bob Hope Airport may be turning the corner is parking, with revenue edging up slightly over the past few months, and passenger surveys continue to be positive.
