San Diego International Airport published a statement earlier this month that marked “2024 as its busiest year ever with 25.24 million passengers recorded traveling through the airport’s terminals. This record-breaking year surpasses the previous busiest record of 25.18 million passengers served in 2019.” That was pre-Pandemic.
Said Kimberly Becker, President and CEO, San Diego County Regional Airport Authority: “Each year following the pandemic, the numbers of travelers recorded at our airport has increased.” She added this was a sure sign or recovery.
The airport says there are some main reasons for this growth.
One is the addition of two new airlines, Breeze and Porter Airlines who have service to nine new nonstop destinations. Plus, “International travel also contributed to growth in 2024 with a more than 10 percent increase from last year.”
Directly attributing to this growth is British Airways’ expansion in service from one to two nonstop daily flights to London, England. International travel is anticipated to continue growth in the coming year with the addition of service to Amsterdam, Netherlands on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and daily nonstop service to Tokyo, Japan on Japan Airlines.
Currently, 18 airlines operate from SAN and offer nonstop flights to 85 destinations around the globe.
From the looks of it from the ground, Terminal One and all the new parking demonstrate its “recovery” despite not adding to the scenery of San Diego’s bay front. All these great additions to jet outta here, but we have to note, as long time observers that San Diego still doesn’t have a trolley or train to its airport. Not to mention some locals fear that with all this business growth of our single-track airport, there will be increasing demands to gut the curfew.
Really expecting Gary W to chime in here — to tell us he ‘told us so.’
Hello, just came across this article. The airport might have been the busiest but did it make money? The 4 BILLION dollars of FREE tax payers money from the FAA just for the last expansion got us what? It’s still a old, one runway, outdated airport in a horrible location for the citizens of San Diego County.