T.F. Green passenger traffic lags other N.E. airports

PASSENGER TRAFFIC at T.F. Green Airport has dropped year over year each month since January, resulting in a year-to-date decline of 6.8 percent. Meanwhile, at Connecticut's Bradley International Airport and Boston's Logan International Airport, passenger numbers have increased consistently. / COURTESY R.I. AIRPORT CORPORATION
PASSENGER TRAFFIC at T.F. Green Airport has dropped year over year each month since January, resulting in a year-to-date decline of 6.8 percent. Meanwhile, at Connecticut's Bradley International Airport and Boston's Logan International Airport, passenger numbers have increased consistently. / COURTESY R.I. AIRPORT CORPORATION

HARTFORD – While passenger traffic at T.F. Green Airport has declined consistently each month since January, airports in nearby Connecticut and Massachusetts have reported passenger increases, according to data compiled by Bernard Kavaler’s “Connecticut by the Numbers” website.

For the month of June, Rhode Island’s state airport saw passenger traffic drop 7.3 percent, compared with increases of 9.3 percent and 4.1 percent at Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport and Boston’s Logan International Airport, respectively.

Year to date, passenger numbers have fallen 6.8 percent at T.F. Green, while Bradley has climbed 10.6 percent and Boston Logan increased 4.4 percent.

The only other major New England airport experiencing declines in recent months has been Manchester Regional Airport in New Hampshire, Kavaler said, which saw a 9.5 percent decrease in the number of passengers for June and a 13 percent decrease during the first half of the year.

- Advertisement -

Kevin A. Dillon, executive director of the Connecticut Airport Authority, has cited the state’s improving economy and ongoing efforts to improve the airport’s capacity as factors contributing to the uptick in passenger traffic at Bradley. (Dillon was previously head of the R.I. Airport Corporation.)

Bradley International Airport is the second-largest airport in New England, representing $1.2 billion in wages and 18,000 full-time jobs, Kavaler said.

In Rhode Island, R.I. Airport Corporation President and CEO Kelly Fredericks has told Providence Business News previously that the continued decline in passenger traffic at the airport this year is partly the result of airlines’ increasingly conservative strategies, and that T.F. Green has continued its “aggressive air-service development efforts” with incumbent airlines and those not currently serving Rhode Island’s airport.

June represented the sixth consecutive month of year-over-year passenger declines for T.F. Green, which followed a drop in January to the lowest number of total passengers for any month since January 1996. During the early months of the year, RIAC cited harsh winter weather as the cause for falling numbers, but the trend has since continued well into summer.

“Connecticut by the Numbers” is a website focused on Connecticut state data maintained by Kavaler, who began his career in broadcast and print media before moving into public policy. Kavaler currently serves as managing principal of Express Strategies, a Hartford-based communications consulting firm.

No posts to display