February Air Traffic Rises 1.9 Percent at Green

By The Providence Journal, R.I.

Apr. 4–Passenger traffic at T.F. Green Airport rose to 354,096 in February, up 1.9 percent from February last year, but airport officials said they don’t yet see the start of a trend.

Patti Goldstein, an airport spokeswoman, said the February school vacation helped raise the monthly passenger numbers. She pointed out that for the first two months of the year, the total passenger traffic is off slightly from the comparable period a year ago.

“Usually, our levels increase as it gets closer to the summer, with the return of seasonal service on Cape Air to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and on Sata to the Azores,” Goldstein said. “Additionally, some carriers may switch to larger aircraft to accommodate the busy summer travel season in popular markets.”

Among all the carriers at Green, Southwest Airlines remained the biggest, with 192,456 passengers, or 54 percent of all passengers in February. Southwest’s total through the first two months of the year was 380,368 passengers, up 19 percent from the comparable two months a year ago.

Overall, Green Airport moved 5.02 million passengers last year, down 3.5 percent from 2006. The decline followed a 9-percent drop the year before.

Nationwide, Bloomberg News reported that February passenger traffic for 16 U.S. airlines rose 5.5 percent, to 56.63 billion revenue passenger miles, from 53.66 billion a year earlier. A revenue passenger mile equals one paying passenger going one mile.

—–

To see more of the The Providence Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.projo.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, The Providence Journal, R.I.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.