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From Staff Reports
Overall air passenger traffic numbers for October 2024 plunged 53 percent in comparison to October 2023, according to a Dec. 13 report released by the Asheville Regional Airport.
The nosedive marked a decline of more than 128,000 passengers for the month.
The decline was a direct “result of Hurricane Helene,†airport President and CEO Lew Bleiweis wrote in a memo to the board.
The month also saw 97 flight cancellations.
What’s more, airport spokesperson Tina Kinsey told the Asheville Citizen Times on Dec. 23, “Estimates show that we will not break 2023 passenger numbers in 2024, due solely to the impacts of Helene.â€
The newspaper added, “Despite the storm, the airport still expects 2024 to be its second busiest on record, Kinsey said.â€
“If not for Helene, 2024 was likely going to be the airport’s busiest year on record. In 2023, passenger numbers soared to an all-time high, with 2.2 million passengers passing through the airport, a 22 percent increase over 2022. For fiscal year 2025, ‘enplanements’ at the airport — meaning the total number of passengers who have boarded planes — declined 11.2 prcent, so far. Fiscal year 2025 started in July 2024 and ends in June 2025,†the ACT noted.
Meanwhile, Chapel Hill-based NPR radio station WUNC-FM reported on Dec. 13, “Flights to and from Asheville operated at about 46 percent capacity in October 2024, compared with about 81 percent capacity a year earlier.â€
Further, WUNC-FM stated, “As a result of the storm, one carrier, Sun Country Airlines, halted its seasonal service on Oct. 6, roughly a month earlier than scheduled, according to an update from (Asheville) airport authorities in early October.
â€The radio station added, “Hurricane Helene wreaked historic devastation on much of Western North Carolina in late September, with damage in the state estimated at $58 billion. Homes, businesses, roads and bridges were destroyed, and the Asheville area endured a 53-day water crisis. Safe drinking water was restored only on November 18.
“Local tourism leaders project that as a result of the storm damage and decreased visitor traffic, businesses reliant on tourism and hospitality in Buncombe County could see revenue losses up to 70 percenr in the final quarter of the year – a loss of about $585 million for the local economy....â€
Meanwhile, the ACT explained that, “shortly after Helene, the (Asheville) airport transformed itself into one of the primary landing spots for regional support, as operations shifted from commercial flights to primarily supporting mutual aid assistance and military support aircraft.
“The financial impact from the storm and pivot from commercial programming saw the airport report a $1.1 million decline in revenue in October alone, according to meeting minutes from the Nov. 8 Greater Asheville Regional Airport Authority Board meeting.â€
WUNC-FM added, “So far this year, overall passenger traffic through the airport is 1,869,397 – roughly the same as it was last year, when the figure to date was 1,869,214.
“But with tourism continuing to lag, it appears unlikely that the airport will exceed last year’s total,†WUNC’s story concluded. |
