The rebound of air travel through Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport made progress in September as nearly 420,000 passengers came through the airport during the month.
The 419,741 passengers enplaned and deplaned at the airport during September represented a 7.2% drop from August and the second straight month of lower passenger volume. Those declines might be expected, however, as summer travel wraps up with children heading back to school.
September’s data did have some good news as the monthly passenger total represented 76.7% of 2019 passenger levels, an improvement from 73.4% in August and the best performance since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On a daily basis, Septembers data represents an average of 7,053 enplanements and 6,938 deplanements, compared to 9,176 and 9,066 respectively in 2019.
Compared to August, the biggest market share gainer at Mitchell was Delta, which increased its share of passengers by 1.54 percentage points to 25.81%. The airline flew 108,332 passengers through Mitchell, a drop of 1,399 from August.
United also made gains, increasing share 0.84 percentage points to 9.89% by flying 41,512 passengers, an increase of 578 from August.
Spirit saw a similar increase, adding 585 passengers to reach 16,981 for the month. The airline increased its share 0.43 percentage points to 4.05.
Sun Country went from flying 610 passengers in August to 2,085 in September, an increase of 1,475 that increased its share by 0.37 to 0.5%.
Spirit and Sun Country are two of the new entrants to the Milwaukee market this year. The airport has seen success adding new routes to a number of new destinations, many of them focused on leisure travel.
Southwest Airlines, on the other hand, saw its passenger total drop by 26,529 from August to 149,546 in September. Its share of passengers fell 3.31 percentage points, but remains the highest at the airport at 35.63. In September of 2019, Southwest had around 40% of the market at Mitchell.
