Passenger numbers at the Colorado Springs Airport last month fell from July’s 16-year high but were nearly triple the volume from August 2020, when the pandemic put a lid on travel.
The 96,286 passengers leaving on outgoing flights was down 10.6% from July but was still the third highest in the past 13 years. The August numbers include passengers leaving Colorado Springs after attending the Space Symposium, which attracted about 8,000 participants and is typically the largest convention held in Colorado Springs.
“Passenger numbers were strong in the first half of August, but once students returned to school, the numbers started coming down,” said Greg Phillips, the city’s aviation director.
“We are still pleased with the numbers and so are Southwest and the other carriers, but we still are proving the potential of Colorado Springs to Southwest and the other carriers — we need to show them we are ready to grow.”
Southwest Airlines again boarded the most passengers — 36,523 — of the five airlines serving Colorado Springs, though that was about 4,800 fewer than it boarded in July. Southwest has been the airport’s largest airline since launching service in March with 13 daily nonstop flights to Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Phillips said passenger numbers, as measured by the number of people passing through the airport’s security checkpoint, have been better than he expected this month. He expects that airport will finish the year well ahead of its forecast of 764,000 for all of 2021. It would need to average just under 75,000 passengers a month — a monthly total the airport has hit since May — for the annual total to hit a 13-year high.
Passenger numbers for the first eight months of the year totaled 566,777, more than double the total over the same period last year and up 4.4% for the same period in 2019.
Airlines have sold nearly 69% of the 821,710 seats available on flights leaving Colorado Springs this year, though the August load factor of 72.8% was down from July’s 79%; the July figure was the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic triggered widespread business shutdowns and curtailed travel worldwide.
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