The three regional airports serving Los Angeles County saw passenger counts rise 7% in September compared to last year, while passenger tallies remained flat at LAX.
These trends emerged from the Business Journal’s monthly look at passenger and cargo stats from the four airports serving Los Angeles County: Los Angeles International, Ontario International, Hollywood Burbank and Long Beach.
Overall, the four airports collectively posted a 1.5% increase in passengers in September to nearly 7.7 million. That figure was 7% below the pre-pandemic Sept. 2019 level.
Ontario led the way in September, posting a 9% jump in passengers in September to 606,000, making it the busiest September on record for the Inland Empire airport. The previous September high was recorded in 2005 when 589,000 passengers went through the gates.
“We made history in September, and 2024 is shaping up to be another record-breaking year for passenger volume – a milestone moment for us since reclaiming local ownership in 2016,” said Atif Elkadi, chief executive of the Ontario International Airport Authority.
Los Angeles World Airports, the Los Angeles city agency that runs LAX, also owned and operated Ontario International from 1985 through 2015.
Hollywood Burbank Airport recorded nearly 544,000 passengers in September, up 6.4% from the same month last year. And Long Beach Airport saw a 4.7% increase to 323,000 passengers.
The Long Beach figure was also a record September high, surpassing by 3.3% the tally from the same month in 2018, according to Long Beach Airport Director Cynthia Guidry.
LAX lagging
As has been the case all year, passenger growth at LAX was sluggish in September. Domestic passenger traffic was down 0.7% in September from the same month last year, while international passenger traffic grew by 2.6%. The total count of 6.2 million was up a mere 0.3% from September of last year.
The international passenger growth rate of 2.6% is notable because it marks a major slowdown. Last September, the international passenger count shot up 28.9% from the Sept. 2022 level. This would seem to indicate that the rapid recovery phase in international passenger travel following the lifting of pandemic-era restrictions has ended.
Domestic passenger traffic tallies have already stalled out: for the first nine months of the year, domestic passenger totals are down 0.4% from the same period last year.
Compared to pre-pandemic levels, LAX is lagging way behind the other airports: overall traffic is still down roughly 11% from September 2019, with domestic passenger counts down 13.5%.
Airport officials in past months have attributed the drop in domestic passengers to various short-term scheduling and route changes at airlines, especially Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co. and New York-based JetBlue Airways Corp. But as the trend line has continued, it has become more difficult to place the blame on these short-term changes.
To combat this sluggish passenger growth, Los Angeles World Airports officials in July created a new unit tasked with luring more airline flights to the international airport. But given how far in advance airlines schedule flights, any positive impact from that new unit is not likely to be felt until next year.
Until then, the main question for LAX is how much of a year-over-year surge in holiday season travel will materialize.
Modest growth in cargo volumes
September saw a modest uptick in cargo volumes at the four airports: the monthly tally of nearly 264,000 metric tons was up 2.7% from the same month last year.
Ontario International led the way with a growth rate of 11% to nearly 65,000 metric tons.
However, LAX, which handles roughly three-fourths of the cargo flowing through the four airports, posted only a slight gain of 0.2%. That’s down from year-over-year gains in the 4% range for the past couple of months. It’s too early to tell whether this September slowdown represents a momentary blip or the start of a significant downturn in cargo volume.
