SAN JOSE – San Jose International Airport has continued to lose altitude in its increasingly difficult effort to regain passenger traffic that has been halted by the economic problems attributable to the coronavirus.
Measured by the variety of passengers the airport handles in comparison with previous periods, the South Bay air traffic hub has fallen right into a pattern of weakness up to now in 2024.
During the primary 4 months of this yr, passenger activity at San José Airport was below the whole for a similar month last yr.
In April, San Jose International Airport handled roughly 966,300 passengers. The April total was 5% below the passenger numbers reported for April 2023, in keeping with a brand new report from the Aviation Center.
The troubling result for April follows the pattern for the opposite three months of 2024 for San José Airport.
Compared to the identical month in 2023, passenger numbers fell by 1.6% in January 2024, 0.2% in February 2024 and three.6% in March 2024. This implies that the monthly total in April 2024 will represent the most important year-on-year decline.
Worryingly, the South Bay air travel complex continues to be removed from reaching the lofty heights it reached in 2019, the last yr before state and native authorities ordered sweeping shutdowns to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Worse still, the South Bay air hub appears to be losing ground in its efforts to return to 2019's pro-COVID passenger count of 15.65 million – a historic high.
In 2023, San José Airport handled 12.1 million passengers, 22.7% lower than in 2019.
However, within the 12 months to April, the South Bay travel complex handled just below 12 million passengers, a 23% decrease from 2019.
San Jose is just not the one one in all the three major airports within the Bay Area that has did not return to its pre-COVID levels.
In 2023, San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport handled 11.24 million passengers, 16% fewer than in 2019.
There has also been some small progress at San Francisco International Airport.
In 2023, SFO handled 50.17 million passengers, down 12.7% from the 57.49 million passengers that passed through the airport in 2019. In the 12 months ending April 2024, SFO handled 51.14 million passengers, down 11.1% from 2019.
Officials at San José International Airport hope that the beginning of the summer travel season, which began on Memorial Day weekend, will give the air traffic hub a lift and improve its situation.
Frontier Airlines, a low-cost carrier, recently announced plans for each day nonstop flights from the South Bay to 5 destinations this summer.
In July, Frontier Airlines will begin flights between San Jose and Denver and San Diego. In August, the airline will begin flights between San Jose and Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
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