Traffic is up near 5 percent year to date.
American Eagle, an affiliate of American Airlines, boards a flight at Lehigh Valley International Airport. LVIA said traffic fell almost 2 percent last month compared to October 2010, a trend attributed to American Eagle's ending service in August.The Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority, which manages LVIA, said 67,105 passengers used the airport in October.
That’s down 1.8 percent from October 2010. The drop continues a recent trend.
Declines were also reported in August and September compared to year-ago levels, partly reversing gains earlier this year.
Year to date, volume is still up 4.6 percent from 2010.
The October drop was blamed on the August departure of American Eagle, an American Airlines carrier that ended its Chicago service from LVIA, citing high fuel costs.
“That’s pretty good considering we lost an airline,” LNAA Chairman David Haines said of the October decline. “If you put it in perspective, we’re doing very well.”Separately, Direct Air on Nov. 11 resumed seasonal service to Punta Gorda, Fla., north of Fort Myers.
LVIA is projected to end 2011 with about 870,000 passengers, assuming traffic maintains last year’s pace through November and December. That would mark the highest total since before the recession, but still below the million-passenger mark reached in the early 2000s.
The airport’s new management firm, AFCO AvPORTS LLC, estimated in a report last week that LVIA suffers from 80 percent “leakage” — meaning that many area travelers use other airports.
To address that problem, the firm said LVIA should improve marketing that touts the airport’s convenience, pursue new airlines, lobby existing carriers to expand service, and other things.
The airport is courting Southwest Airlines, which last year purchased LVIA carrier AirTran Airways.
Dallas-based Southwest is still determining which AirTran markets to acquire, a process expected to carry into 2012. Haines noted that Southwest recently decided against adding six airports previously served by AirTran, but LVIA was not among those eliminated.
“We’re on the good list” so far, interim LNAA Executive Director Skip Fairchild said.Based in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, LVIA serves the region with mostly domestic flights.