The slide in local airport passenger traffic continued through the first half of the year – and not even the 2026 FIFA World Cup could offer any relief.
The four airports serving Los Angeles County reported a combined tally of 43.3 million passengers for the first six months of this year, down 1.7% compared to the same period of last year. That followed a 3% drop last year from the same six-month stretch of 2024.
Three of the four airports – Los Angeles International, Hollywood Burbank and Long Beach – were down, while Ontario International Airport posted a gain of nearly 2%.
The results were even worse for June, the month that supposedly was to receive a huge tourism boost sparked by the World Cup. All four airports reported a decline in passengers in June compared to the same month last year, posting a combined drop of 2.3%.
By airport, Long Beach reported a nearly 14% plunge in June compared to the same month last year; Hollywood Burbank saw a 10% fall; and LAX reported a 1.4% drop. Ontario also experienced a slight 0.1% dip.
At LAX, the region’s main international hub and the airport closest to World Cup host SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, international passenger travel fell 1.3% in June compared to the same month last year.
High cost, multiple locations
What happened to the World Cup travel surge?
Several factors played into the disappointing air travel impact of the World Cup, according to Adam Burke, chief executive of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.
“Historically, most World Cups have been held in a single location, making it easy for fans to book flights,” Burke said. He pointed to the last FIFA World Cup in 2022 in Qatar, where all the matches were within easy reach of that nation’s main international airport.
“This World Cup was spread out in 16 cities across three countries, meaning that as your team progressed through the tournament, you had to book additional flights to stay with your team and also pay for those flights,” he said.
The uncertainty of the schedule also served as a hurdle, especially given the expanded team count in this tournament.
“A lot of fans didn’t know where their teams would be playing far enough in advance to book flights,” Burke said. “This was especially true for the later rounds.”
In Qatar, if your team advanced, all you had to do was book additional hotel nights – no extra flights were necessary, he said.
Then, there was the cost, for both the game tickets and flights. FIFA, or the International Association of Association Football, charged record-high prices for many game tickets, with some prices topping $1,000 even for early-round group stage matches. And since the United States and Israel launched their attack on Iran at the end of February, the average international air fare has risen roughly 15% with fares on some international routes to LAX rising as much as 45%, according to flight search engine Skiplagged as cited in a recent New York Times article.
Finally, Burke said, there was a bit of a displacement effect, where travelers who in other years would have booked flights to Los Angeles and other World Cup host cities chose to stay away because they figured prices would be hiked for the games.
All this translated into what turned out to be a fizzle for the World Cup’s impact on passenger counts at local airports – at least for June. Whether LAX saw a bump up in international passengers in July as a result of the two elimination-round matches at SoFi Stadium that month will have to wait for the release of the July numbers at the end of this month.
Burke stressed that the airport passenger numbers are only a small part of the picture for the overall economic impact of the FIFA World Cup. He said he will pay more attention to the total economic impact figures when they are released – including dollars flowing to local bars and restaurants and retailers from all the local fan gatherings.
Hollywood Burbank and Long Beach’s tally
When reviewing the first-half of 2026 passenger counts at the four local airports, what stands out the most is the plunge at both Hollywood Burbank and Long Beach Airports, which fell 8.6% and 9% respectively compared to the same six-month stretch last year.
At Hollywood Burbank Airport, the story has been the exit of two air carriers within the last 12 months. In the runup to its complete shutdown on May 2, Dania Beach, Florida-based Spirit Airlines Inc., had sold hundreds of planes and cut scores of routes across the country, including at Hollywood Burbank. And Houston-based Avelo Airlines Inc. announced last year it was closing its West Coast hub at Hollywood Burbank, exiting the airport entirely.
The combination of these restructurings has cost the airport tens of thousands of passengers each month.
The picture should brighten a bit for the Burbank airport in the second half of this year as five airlines – Seattle-based Alaska Airlines Inc., Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air, Cottonwood, Utah-based Breeze Airways, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co. and JetBlue – have previously announced a total of 11 added flight routes. Some of the additional flights have already begun, including seasonal Alaska Airlines service to Honolulu, Hawaii.
At Long Beach, Southwest Airlines Co. is by far the dominant player with more than 85% of total passengers and flights. The Dallas-based carrier has cut routes across the country. It’s also recovering from controversial moves it made last year to end its two free checked bags and open seating policies, two of the factors that had led to its loyal following.
As at Hollywood Burbank, there is hope for higher passenger totals in the second half of the year for the Long Beach municipal airport. In May, Alaska Airlines announced it was resuming service at Long Beach in September with flights to Seattle. And Southwest has also announced added flights at the airport for later this year, including nonstop daily flights to Portland, Oregon and Seattle.
Nonetheless, the steepness of the decline for the first half of the year wiped out steady gains since the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the passenger tally at Long Beach 1.7% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
Ontario: In positive territory
The Inland Empire’s Ontario International Airport, which also draws passengers from the San Gabriel Valley in L.A. County, was the sole positive spot in an otherwise downbeat first half of the year for local airports.
For the first six months of the year, Ontario International posted a 1.9% gain in passengers compared to the same stretch last year. But it was a tale of two quarters: the first quarter saw relatively robust 4% growth in passengers, while the second quarter saw a mere 0.04% growth – basically flat performance – compared to the same quarter last year.
Nonetheless, airport officials welcomed the passenger growth at Ontario. They noted that the six-month total of 1.87 million passengers was the highest such total since the airport returned to local control a decade ago after several decades under Los Angeles World Airports, the Los Angeles city agency that runs LAX.
What’s more, Ontario International has been the star performer among local airports since the pandemic, with passenger counts for the first half of this year up 31% from the first half of pre-pandemic 2019.
LAX drop
At LAX, roughly 35.4 million passengers went through the gates for the first six months of the year, down 1% from the same stretch last year. But for LAX, this represents improvement: the first-half total for last year was down nearly 4% compared to the passenger total for the same period in 2024.
The decline was most pronounced on the international front, which saw a 2.2% drop in passengers for the first six months of this year compared to last year. The domestic passenger tally was down only 0.4%. This represents a reversal from last year, when domestic passenger counts were down nearly 5% and the international tally fell just over 1%.
In the longer-term picture, LAX has been losing ground as it tries to make up the loss in passengers from the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first six-months of this year, the passenger tally was 17.7% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels, compared to a 16.9% drop for the first six months of last year.
Air cargo sees gain
The air cargo picture at the four airports serving Los Angeles County was much brighter than the passenger side, with all four airports reporting gains for the first six months of this year compared to last year.
For the first six months of this year, nearly 1.6 million metric tons of air cargo flowed through the four airports, up 5.9% from the same stretch last year.
The main focus for air cargo is on LAX and Ontario International, which together comprise nearly 98% of all air cargo at the four airports. LAX posted a gain of 5.2% for the first six months of this year compared to last year, while Ontario posted a gain of 7.6%.
One reason for the gains across the board was the uncertainty over tariffs last year that served to depress the 2025 air cargo totals.
