By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
T.F. Green Airport released their latest passenger numbers Wednesday, showing a nearly 7 percent increase from April of last year.
The total number of passengers in April of this year was 330,423, up from 310,034 in April of last year.
“Two months in a row we’re up,” said Patti Goldstein, Vice President of Public Affairs & Air Service Marketing. She said it’s not exactly a “trend” yet, but it’s promising.
Goldstein said additional seasonal services to Florida, as well as the growth of new carrier, JetBlue, helped with the uptick.
She’s hopeful the upwards trend will continue this summer, when Cape Air returns in June to offer 20-minute flights to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
“They’re our favorite seasonal airline,” she said, adding that they’ve been a seasonal carrier at T.F. Green for more than 15 years.
Goldstein said they haven’t been impacted by The Sequester, and things have been “going great” at T.F. Green. She said graduation season and family travel have positively helped air traffic at the Warwick airport.
“The economy has been fragile, but more people have been travelling,” she said.
As far as the Interlink, the new portion of the transit hub that includes rental cars and train services, Goldstein said it’s getting off the ground.
“It’s going to be slow starting. It takes a while but it is a plus for us,” she said. “It’s another way for people to access the airport… and it’s a seamless way to travel: you’re covered all the way through until you get to your destination.”
T.F. Green offers flights from major airlines like U.S. Airways, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, Continental and United Airlines, but Southwest continues to dominate. Goldstein said Southwest has almost 50 percent of the market share, and offers the most flights from T.F. Green. This year, Southwest has seen 570,797 passengers. The carrier with the next highest number of passengers is U.S. Airways, which saw 153,835 passengers in 2013 according to April data.
|
|
Kim Kalunian
