New flights to New York and Mexico helped boost passenger traffic at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ International Airport in October and November, putting the airport on for a year of positive growth in 2016.
Airline passengers using the airport were up 8.5 percent in November, the largest year-over-year percentage gain for November since 2005, the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Airport Authority said.
That came after a 5.7 percent increase in October.
The Airport Authority attributed much of the growth in 2016 to the launches in October of nonstop service to New York on American Airlines and to Mexico on Aeromar. Passengers using the new flights accounted for 41 percent of the growth in October.
“We got off to good solid starts on both flights and we’re looking forward to see passenger demand grow,†said David Hatfield, senior director of business bevelopment and marketing for the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Airport Authority.
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Through 11 months of 2016, passenger traffic was up 3.1 percent, to nearly 3 million. That’s almost 90,000 more than used the airport during the same period in 2015.
Airlines planned growth for the month, with ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ schedules that increased seat capacity by 3.2 percent to an average of 5,760 per week going to 19 nonstop destinations.
A total of 295,271 passengers used ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ International in November and 293,112 went through the airport in October, making the two months the second and third busiest months so far of 2016, airport officials said.
Historically, the airport is usually busiest during the winter tourism season months starting in January and going through April. At 315,852 passengers, March was the busiest month so far in 2016.
In October, Aeromar began round-trip service four days a week to Hermosillo, Los Mochis, Mazatlán and Guadalajara in Mexico.
Also the first week of October, American Airlines began its daily nonstop round-trip service to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Meanwhile, other airlines also began using larger aircraft on existing routes at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ International Airport, further boosting traffic counts.