"Pittsburgh airport traffic rises in June but still lags last year"

Tuesday, August 5, 2003

Airport traffic rises in June but still lags last year
Pittsburgh (PA) Business Times


Passenger traffic at Pittsburgh International Airport rose 5.6 percent from
May to June but remains below year-ago levels, the Allegheny County Airport
Authority said. 
  
More than 1.3 million passengers got on or off an airplane at Pittsburgh
International in June, bringing the year-to-date total to roughly 7 million,
according to the Airport Authority. 

But that figure is 25 percent lower than the total for the same period of
2002, when about 9.4 million passengers used Pittsburgh International, the
Airport Authority said Tuesday. 

The agency said the decline stemmed mostly from cutbacks at US Airways,
following the carrier's successfully Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring.
For the first six months of the year, traffic at US Airways and US Airways
Express was off 29.4 percent, according to the Airport Authority. Traffic
for other carriers rose 6.2 percent for the period. 

"The increase in airport passenger numbers from May to June indicates the
launch of the busy summer travel season," Kent George, executive director of
the Airport Authority, said in a statement. 

He added that the end of the war in Iraq, the passing of the SARS epidemic
and an improving economic outlook should bring passenger traffic gains in
the coming months.


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