All Bay Area airports remain stuck below pre-COVID-19 passenger levels

SAN JOSE — All three Bay Area airports remain well below their pre-coronavirus peaks — but airports in San Jose and Oakland remain far behind the pace of San Francisco airport's post-COVID recovery.

Adding to the worrisome trends, passenger trends in 2024 for each San Jose International Airport within the South Bay and San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport within the East Bay lag behind 2023 results, in response to monthly evaluation This news organization reports from the aviation hubs.

As a Southwest aircraft arrives, another prepares to depart Oakland International Airport, seen from San Leandro, Calif., on Thursday, April 11, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
Oakland International Airport, September 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Unlike its two smaller competitors within the Bay Area, San Francisco Airport — which is in a legal battle with Oakland Airport — is seeing an uptick in 2024 in comparison with 2023.

Here are the present trends for the variety of passengers served on the Bay Area's three major airports through September, the month with probably the most current statistics for the aviation hubs:

– San Jose Airport averaged 981,000 passenger trips per 30 days in the primary nine months of 2024, down 2.6% from the monthly average of 1.01 million passengers in 2023.

– Oakland Airport averaged 920,000 passenger trips per 30 days in 2024, 1.7% lower than the 937,000 passenger trips per 30 days in 2023.

– San Francisco Airport averaged 4.31 million passengers in the primary nine months of 2024, up 3.1% from a monthly average of 4.18 million passenger trips in 2023.

Passenger numbers at San Jose International Airport increased over the summer but began to say no after the leisure travel season ended.

But while San Francisco Airport has seen greater levels of activity recently, passenger travel through all three airports remains to be removed from the heights they were at just before coronavirus-related shutdowns began in March 2020.

San Jose International Airport has experienced the slowest recovery from its COVID-related illnesses.

For the 12 months led to September, San Jose Airport handled 11.83 million passengers, down 24.4% from 2019, when the South Bay aviation hub handled a record 15.65 million passengers. That was the last full 12 months before the COVID shutdowns began.

In the 12 months ended September, San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport handled 11.13 million passengers, a 16.8% decline from 2019, when the East Bay travel complex handled 13.38 million passengers.

San Francisco Airport handled 51.14 million passengers within the 12 months ended September, down 11.1% from the 57.49 million passengers SFO handled in 2019.

The increasing use of distant technologies to conduct meetings has dampened interest in travel to many business-oriented destinations, which is the case in San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco.

This dynamic, in turn, has hampered travel through major airports that handle business travel within the Bay Area.

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