PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — The records keep falling when it comes to total passengers at the Gen. Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport.
The Metropolitan Airport Authority of Peoria announced that March had the highest number — 71,988 — of passengers flying in and out of the airport. The old record was in July 2019 when 68,447 flew in and out of the airport.
It also beat the old monthly all time high by more than 5%, said Gene Olson, Director of Airports for the authority.
“We knew that March was going to put up some impressive numbers, based on the activity in our parking lots, and we suspected we might set a record,” he said. “But we didn’t anticipate breaking the all-time monthly record, and we didn’t foresee setting the record by that large of a margin.”
He added the airlines have been adding frequencies to the destinations we already served and adding new destinations.
“We’re grateful to the folks in Central Illinois who have been using those additional flights,” he said. “People have really been supporting our existing flights, and we’re seeing great usage of both our low-cost Denver weekly flights and our new daily Denver flights on United.”
The airport has seen increasing numbers which have exceeded the pre-Covid monthly averages since last June. In 2024 alone, the airport set monthly records in August, September, November, and December. They set a record this past January but fell short by just over 500 passengers in February which was likely due to snow-related cancellations at the hub airports.
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