Mineta San Jose International Airport's recovery from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic remains a mixed bag.
"We've certainly been recovering," said airport spokesman Scott Wintner."We're definitely up," he continued,"but not to where we were." The two other Bay Area airports are in a similar situation as Mineta. The number of flights scheduled to depart Oakland International Airport in the fourth quarter is up 22% from the number that flew out in the same period last year. But scheduled flights for the quarter are still down 16% from 2019 levels.
On the demand side, business travel nationwide still hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic, Wintner said. That's likely a particular issue in Silicon Valley, he said. Indeed, as traffic continued to grow from there up until the pandemic, hitting 15.7 million passengers in calendar year 2019, SJC struggled to accommodate it, Wintner said. The airport added six gates to try to handle all the traffic coming through. But because that was just a stopgap solution, it wasn't able to add on additional space for check-in desks, security checkpoints or baggage claims. That frequently meant long lines or waits in all three areas, he said.
Together, those airports' scheduled departures for the final three months of this year are down 23% from 2019 levels. In terms of the number of flights lost, Chicago O'Hare International Airport is the biggest loser among all airports nationwide. It expect to see 73,164 departures this quarter, 29,484 fewer than it saw three years earlier. That's a drop of 29%.