November 30, 2020 at 10:39 a.m.
Passenger traffic through airport remains high
Delta adds 3rd flight over Thanksgiving weekend
Passenger traffic through airport remains high
To accommodate holiday travelers, Delta added a third flight on Wednesday, Nov. 25, Sunday, Nov. 29, and Monday, Nov. 30, airport director Matt Leitner announced.
The airline industry was hit hard early in the pandemic, with many potential passengers foregoing trips. Only now are people braving the skies once again, with airlines limiting the number of passengers to 60 percent of capacity of the airplane or 30 per flight.
Still, Leitner will take 120 or 180 passengers a day during a pandemic.
"Absolutely," he said. "And we have been able to do it safely," he noted.
Traffic into and out of the Rhinelander-Oneida County Airport dropped drastically in March, when the pandemic first took hold, but the airport experienced a turnaround rather quickly, according to data on flightaware.com.
By May, the passenger count had climbed back to 219, down from the 351 passengers seen in 2019. By mid-June, the number of passengers this year surpassed that of 2019, and the numbers have not fallen been below last year's levels since, according to a interactive graph on the website.
The number of passengers in October, the latest month for which information is available, was 444. October 2019 saw 356 passengers go through the Robert G. Heck Terminal.
The increase in passengers this year was all good news for Leitner, although the reason was apparent.
"This summer, we were having four flights because of the increased demand," he said.
He said the airline industry is starting to crawl back from earlier this year when many airplanes across the country were parked due to low demand.
"It was at 90 percent at its nadir, now it's down 55-60 (percent)," Leitner said.
The additional passengers means additional ticket fees that help fund major projects and purchases such as vehicles or specialized equipment or the enlarged secure departure holding area.
Jamie Taylor may be reached via email at [email protected].
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