Southwest Airlines Co.’s woes hit all four airports serving Los Angeles County in January, sending the total passenger count down 3% to less than 6.7 million. The Dallas-based air carrier has had to repeatedly trim its flight schedules as it has grappled with an acute shortage of Boeing 737 Max aircraft.
Crystal City, Virginia-based Boeing Co. had initially agreed to deliver nearly 80 of the aircraft to Southwest last year but ultimately delivered around 20 of the aircraft. Boeing faced production delays, a worker strike and fallout from a door-sized panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines Max plane in January of last year. Expectations for 2025 deliveries are also being scaled back.
Southwest made up some of the shortfall by keeping older planes in service longer, but had to cut its overall number of flights.
Locally, these moves resulted in fewer Southwest flights and fewer Southwest passengers at all four airports serving Los Angeles County: Los Angeles International, Ontario International, Hollywood Burbank and Long Beach. Because Southwest is the largest air carrier by passenger volume at the three regional airports and a major carrier at LAX, these cutbacks had a significant effect on the overall passenger tallies at the airports. Southwest handled just over 1 million passengers at the four airports in January, down 17% from the same month last year.
Long Beach, LAX hardest hit
The impact was most acutely felt at Long Beach Airport, where Southwest is so dominant that it accounts for just under 90% of all passengers. A spokeswoman for the airport confirmed that Southwest’s cutting of flights due to “aircraft supply constraints” was the main factor in the airport’s 8.3% drop in passengers in January, the largest percentage drop of the four airports.
LAX saw both the largest numeric drop (nearly 109,000) and percentage plunge (21%) in Southwest passengers. This drop compounded LAX’s already existing woes that intensified throughout last year, especially in domestic passenger counts. For January, the total of 3.58 million domestic passengers at LAX was down more than 5% from the same month last year. International passenger traffic eked out a gain of less than 2%. Overall, the passenger tally was down 3%.
Hollywood Burbank Airport posted a drop of more than 6% in passengers in January, again largely due to a 20% plunge in the number of passengers that Southwest carried.
Ontario sees growth
Ontario International was the least impacted airport of the four and it was the only one to post a gain in passengers. Southwest, which accounts for just over one-third of passengers at the Inland Empire airport, saw a drop of 7%. While a comparatively small drop, it helped keep a lid on the explosive passenger growth the airport has seen over the past three years as the growth rate slowed to just over 1%.
Nonetheless, Ontario International in January recorded 20% more passengers than in January of pre-pandemic 2019 and remains near record-high territory. That helps explain why administrators were upbeat about January’s results.
Cargo results were mixed
Air cargo tonnage handled at the four airports was down nearly 3% in January compared to the same month last year, but the performance was mixed.
About 98% of the nearly 240,000 metric tons of cargo went through just two airports: LAX and Ontario International. LAX, which handles the most cargo, saw a 6% drop, while second-place Ontario saw a gain of nearly 7%.
For much of last year, these airports tracked along with pre-pandemic 2019 cargo levels; January’s results, however, came up more than 3% short of January 2019’s cargo tonnage.
