It's been a turbulent recovery for Philadelphia International and other U.S. airports coming out of the Covid-19 lockdowns, with scheduled national flight traffic still trailing pre-pandemic levels heading into the busy holiday travel season, reports the Philadelphia Business Journal.
A Business Journals analysis of airport data from Cirium Inc. identified 1.84 million domestic flights scheduled in the fourth quarter, which is down 15% from the 2.17 million flights completed during the same three-month period in pre-pandemic 2019.
In fact, the current quarter's scheduled flights are down slightly from what was recorded in the fourth quarter last year, when 1.85 million domestic flights were completed.
As of Monday, Philadelphia International Airport had 25,477 domestic flights completed or scheduled between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, down 10.5% from the 28,480 completed in the fourth quarter of last year and a drop of 35% from 39,037 flights during the same period in 2019.
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PHL's decrease of 13,560 flights compared to 2019 is fourth-most in the nation behind only O'Hare International Airport in Chicago (29,484), Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta (17,227), and Los Angeles International Airport (14,979).
Check out PBJ.com's full article for how PHL's dominant carrier, American Airlines, has trimmed domestic flights from its schedule amid staffing shortages.
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