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TIA is making slow but steady progress; St. Petersburg-Clearwater is recovering from lost international travel.
By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 17, 2002
TAMPA -- Tampa International Airport is continuing to recover from the aftermath of September's terrorist attacks faster than the average rate for the rest of the nation's airports, according to the latest passenger figures.
Boarding passengers totaled slightly more than 781,000 in March, compared to nearly 836,000 in March of last year, a decline of 6.5 percent. Nationwide, passenger counts for the same period were down 10.2 percent.
"Naturally, we'd like to see that back in plus numbers, but we don't know when that's going to happen," said Louis Miller, executive director of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority.
The March passenger numbers represent a slow but steady trend toward normalcy at TIA. Last October, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, passenger counts were down by 13 percent. They declined further in November, down 13.7 percent, led by people who opted out of the skies for the Thanksgiving holiday. They rebounded to a loss of just 7 percent by February and then improved again in March.
At St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport the numbers were mixed. In March, domestic passenger counts actually were up over March 2001 by 13 percent. But the loss of Canada 3000 Airlines, which went out of business last November, depressed international travel by 71 percent in March.
Thus, overall passenger counts at St. Petersburg-Clearwater were down 18 percent for March versus a year earlier, from 91,000 to 74,000. But the numbers have showed steady improvement. In January, passenger counts were down 32 percent, and in February they were down 22 percent.
"They're going in the right direction," said Elaine Smalling, marketing director for the airport. "Once we get over the loss of Canada 3000 and get those international figures back up, we'll be in great shape."
At TIA, Delta Air Lines jumped back to the top in passenger counts in March, accounting for nearly 21 percent of those who board airplanes. Southwest Airlines was second at 18.7 percent.
"Southwest still has far more seating capacity flying into and out of Tampa, but a lot of the seats are occupied by through passengers," Miller said.
Thirty Southwest flights a day pass through Tampa coming from or going to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Many seats are filled with passengers from those cities.
The largest gains in passenger traffic at TIA continue to come from the low-fare carriers. AirTran was up 26 percent in March, JetBlue up 22.3 percent, Southwest up 5.2 percent and Spirit up 28.3 percent.
The largest losses among major carriers are United Airlines, down 13.6 percent and US Airways, down 22.2 percent.