The number of passengers traveling through Pittsburgh International and Arnold Palmer Regional airports is on the rebound, in step with a national resurgence in air travel after a 2020 pandemic-fueled slump.
“We’re seeing similar increases in passenger traffic as the rest of the industry,” said Alyson Walls, a spokeswoman for the Allegheny County Airport Authority and its project to modernize the terminal at Pittsburgh International. “Passenger traffic has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but it has been increasing.”
At airports nationwide, nearly 1.6 million people passed through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints on April 2, the most recent high point for air travel. That figure was down from more than 2.4 million air travelers at the same time in 2019, but it was more than 12 times the roughly 130,000 who flew at that point in 2020.
At Pittsburgh International, TSA agents screened 6,496 passengers on April 3 — almost 14 times the 467 who flew on the same date in 2020.
“We’ve seen similar results and increasing traffic for the past couple of weeks,” Walls said. During the week of March 28-April 3, the airport saw about 50,000 departing passengers. That was the highest weekly total since earlier in March, but it represented only about 50% of pre-pandemic levels.
As another measure of increasing traffic, Walls noted the airport will reopen all of its parking lots Monday. The extended-term parking lot has been closed for the past year.
Arnold Palmer Regional is “in the best shape we’ve been in in a long time,” said Gabe Monzo, executive director of the Westmoreland County Airport Authority, which operates the airport in Unity.
In March, the airport counted 21,620 inbound and outbound passengers, up from 8,011 in February and 5,363 in January. Still, the airport, which has Spirit Airlines as its sole commercial carrier, hasn’t recaptured pre-pandemic numbers. In March 2019, the airport accommodated 34,651 passengers.
Several recent flights from Westmoreland County to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and destinations in Florida have approached full capacity of 175 passengers.
“The (covid-19) pandemic has had a devastating effect on all of us,” Monzo said. “The increase in (passenger) service is a welcome change, and it’s a direct result of the hard work of our staff.”
Monzo believes increasing distribution of the covid-19 vaccine has allowed people to feel safer and has encouraged them to book flights, with leisure travel leading the way.
“We’re primarily a leisure market here,” Monzo said. “We fit the bill, and people are taking advantage of it. People just want to get out of town.”
Beginning May 5, Monzo noted, Spirit will expand the number of flights to two destinations. There will be two flights per day to Orlando on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and two per day to Myrtle Beach on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
With a runway widening project and passenger holding area expansion completed and a second airplane boarding bridge in place at Arnold Palmer, Monzo said, “We’re looking forward to bigger and better things coming down the road.”
