Pittsburgh International Hits 35th Consecutive Month of Passenger Growth
March marked the airport’s 35th consecutive month of passenger growth, the longest consecutive string of gains since a 44-month streak was snapped in 1986.
Passenger growth in March has Pittsburgh on the verge of a third straight year with sustained increases in service.
March passenger traffic increased 1.6 percent, equating to a total of 837,561 passengers. In addition, total available seats for the month of March increased 1 percent, with 182 weekday departures on nonstop routes that offer more than 18,000 available seats total.
“This really speaks to our diversification strategy and providing the air service the Pittsburgh market demands. We are continuing to see growth across multiple carriers and even where we’ve seen some carriers pull back, others have jumped in to fill the void,” said Bryan Dietz, vice president of air service development at the Allegheny County Airport Authority. “This shows that our market is strong and is continuing to respond to new air service.”
Carriers primarily driving the passenger increases in March were United – which added capacity to San Francisco, Chicago, Newark, Denver and Washington Dulles – and Southwest, which doubled its number of nonstop seats to Nashville. Delta has also added new service to Salt Lake City and Boston since last March.
Pittsburgh has nonstop service to 66 airports, including new year-round service to London Heathrow that began in April, as did a new flight to Birmingham, Alabama, on Via Airlines. Allegiant Air will launch nonstop service to Knoxville, Tennessee, in May, and Delta Air Lines will add daily nonstop service to Raleigh/Durham in June.