The 99,478 passengers boarding outbound flights were the most since 100,514 passengers left the airport in July 2008 and 9½ times the number boarding flights in June 2020. Passenger numbers for the first half of the year are more than double the same period last year — just 1,056 below the total for all of 2020 — and 5.1% below the total for the same period in 2019.
The numbers for July are expected to be even better, based on the number of passengers who passed through the airport’s security checkpoint this month, said Greg Phillips, the city’s aviation director. Nearly 3,600 passengers a day had gone through the checkpoint through Monday, or 3.6% more than the average for June. Checkpoint numbers include more than passengers — pilots, flight attendants and employees of businesses beyond the checkpoint also are counted.
“If you like the June numbers, wait until you see July’s numbers,” Phillips said. “July is looking really good and we have had some days where more than 4,000 passengers passed through the checkpoint. I have high hopes for the rest of the summer. June was a good month, July was better and in August, we will have passengers from the Space Symposium.”
The Space Symposium is the biggest convention held in Colorado Springs, though this year it will be a hybrid in-person and online event due to the pandemic.
Southwest Airlines again led all five airlines serving Colorado Springs with 37,725 passengers, filling 72.1% of its available seats. It has been the largest airline every month since it began flying to Colorado Springs on March 11. When passengers who were making an intermediate stop in the Springs after boarding at an earlier destination are added, the percentage of seats on Southwest flights filled last month increases to 80.4%, slightly above the airport’s second-place carrier, United Airlines.
“Tourism typically slows in the fall, so we hope the community will continue to use the service we have to show the airlines they can be successful year round rather than just in the summer,” Phillips said. New flights are coming: Southwest is experimenting with flights to Houston and San Antonio during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods to gauge demand for the routes.
Overall, the five airlines flying to Colorado Springs sold 77.8% of their seats during June — 81.3% if Southwest’s pass-through passengers are included. That’s the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic triggered widespread business shutdowns and curtailed travel. Airlines have filled 65.6% of the seats on their Colorado Springs flights during the first half of the year, up from 63.1% a year ago and 85.5% from the same period in 2019.
Mayor John Suthers this month said he expects the airport will board more than 1 million passengers on departing flights next year — the airport hasn’t boarded that many since 2007. Airport officials forecast that 764,000 passengers will leave this year on departing flights, more than double last year’s total, but down 9.2% from the 2019 total. The airport’s passenger numbers peaked at 2.42 million in 1996, when the now-defunct Western Pacific Airlines operated a hub in Colorado Springs.
This content was originally published here.
