T.F. Green sees traffic drop in February

PASSENGER TRAFFIC HAS FALLEN to the lowest level in a decade for the first two months of the year, according to R.I. Airport Corporation numbers released Thursday. / COURTESY OFFICE OF THE R.I. SECRTARY OF STATE
PASSENGER TRAFFIC HAS FALLEN to the lowest level in a decade for the first two months of the year, according to R.I. Airport Corporation numbers released Thursday. / COURTESY OFFICE OF THE R.I. SECRTARY OF STATE

(Updated March 22, 4:22 p.m.)

WARWICK – Passenger traffic at T.F. Green Airport fell 6.1 percent in February compared with February 2012 to 249,554, the second-lowest number since the beginning of 2009, according to numbers released by the R.I. Airport Corporation on Thursday.
A spokesman for RIAC noted that two days almost completely lost to snow this year and an inflated month in a leap year in 2012 could account for more traffic than was lost year over year.
Year-to-date, the number of passengers both enplaning and deplaning fell 4.2 percent to 501,345, the lowest total in the last decade for the first two months of the year.
Of the five airlines with the largest share of passenger traffic at T.F. Green, Southwest Airlines (48.4 percent), US Airways (24.3 percent), Delta Airlines (10.3 percent), JetBlue Airways (8.3 percent) and United Airlines (8.2 percent), only United showed any growth over last year’s numbers, increasing 2.5 percent to 20,382 passengers in February. United’s increase could be explained in large part by its acquisition of Continental Airlines, however. JetBlue did not fly into or out of T.F. Green in February 2012, but its February 2013 total was 20,688.
The biggest drop in traffic was recorded by Delta, which saw a 17.6 percent decline to 25,784 passengers. Southwest recorded an 11.6 percent drop to 120,797, while US Airways fell 6.4 percent to 60,721.
At the same time, the amount of cargo that was loaded and unloaded at RIAC facilities increased 11.1 percent in February over a year earlier to 1.8 million pounds. Similarly, cargo increased 13.1 percent in the first two months of the year to 3.7 million pounds.

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