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Internet Travel Monitor - Industry News
February 13, 2008
Passengers Up at New Orleans Airport
NEW ORLEANS, LA – Annual passenger traffic at Louisiana's largest airport jumped nearly 21 percent in 2007 and reached about three-quarters of the number handled before Hurricane Katrina hit, the airport reported Tuesday.
Just over 7.5 million passengers either embarked or disembarked at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in 2007, an increase from about 6.1 million in 2006.
In 2004, the last full year before Katrina totally disrupted the airport, a record 9.7 million passengers passed through the airport. After the storm shut down most traffic for the last four months of 2005, the annual tally dropped to 7.8 million.
A major challenge for the airport has been rebuilding the number of flights coming through New Orleans. By May, the airport, which had 132 daily flights in December, will have seven more flights.
That total will represent 86 percent of flights before Katrina, along with 80 percent of seats before the storm, said airport spokeswoman Michelle Wilcut.
"We expect the growth of passengers and flights to continue as the region continues to rebuild," said aviation director Sean Hunter.
In 2007, the airport's three largest carriers captured over 55 percent of the passengers.
Southwest Airlines remained the passenger volume leader with 25.4 percent last year, followed by American Airlines with 15.2 percent and Continental Airlines with 15.1 percent.
Delta Air Lines had 12.4 percent of the market, followed by U.S. Airways with 9.2 percent, United Airlines with 9 percent, Northwest Airlines with 4.6 percent, AirTran Airways with 4.4 percent, JetBlue Airways with 2.4 percent and ExpressJet with 2.1 percent.
Wilcut said the planned flight expansions by May involved most of the carriers.
In the meantime, the airport and the entire industry is awaiting to see the shakeout of a possible Delta-Northwest combination.
"They fly to different locations out of here," Wilcut said. "Until we know what hubs will stay open and close, we won't know."
In 2007, the amount of mail and freight handled through Armstrong dropped 2.5 percent from the previous year to 98.9 million pounds, the airport said.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. From http://www.forbes.com. By Alan Sayre.
To view the Internet Travel Monitor Archive, click http://www.tripinfo.com/ITM/index.html.
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