Passenger traffic remained essentially flat

Passenger traffic at Denver International Airport remained essentially flat in October, declining 0.1 percent when compared with the same month last year.  A total of 4,154,517 passengers used the airport in October, 2,767 fewer than the 4,157,284 travelers recorded at DIA in October of 2007.

The slight drop in passengers ended the airport’s 21-month streak of monthly increases that began in January 2007.

 “We have been saying since last summer that we expected traffic to level off or drop slightly during the last half of the year, and these numbers bear that out,” Denver Aviation Manager Kim Day said Wednesday.  “Still, a number of airports reported double-digit traffic declines in October, so we are encouraged that Denver’s market remains pretty strong.”

The October total pushed DIA’s year-to-date passenger total to 43,492,802.  That was 3.3 percent ahead of the 42,115,350 travelers who used the facility during the first 10 months of last year.

DIA is still on track to break the record passenger count of 49.8 million that was set last year.  With the busy holiday months of November and December still to be recorded, officials were optimistic that DIA will top 50 million travelers this year.

Flight operations in October fell 3.6 percent to 50,473.  That brought DIA’s year-to-date total to 527,163 operations, up 1.9 percent over the same period of 2007.

Source: Transportweekly