The Piedmont Triad Airport Authority – the seven-member board that oversees airport operations – met earlier this week and, as is the board’s practice, released the latest stats on flyers, cargo, flights and other airport-related matters.
One bright spot in the new statistics is that the number of people flying in and out of Piedmont Triad International Airport continues to rise: The number of passengers was up 8 percent in January of 2025 over January of 2024 and, also, of course, up 8 percent year-to-date since January is the only complete month of the new year.
Soon after the pandemic hit in early 2020, the airport experienced a day when there were literally more people working at the terminal than there were passengers flying that day. Since that very low point in the spring of 2020, the number of passengers using the airport has been increasing – but the airport still hasn’t come back to pre-pandemic passenger levels.
PTI Executive Director Kevin Baker has a long sought-after goal of surpassing the number of flyers the airport had in 2019, and he has told the Rhino Times in the past that he is hopeful 2025 is the year that will finally happen.
One thing that should help is that the airport recently landed a very low-cost carrier, Breeze Airways, which will begin routes from Greensboro to Connecticut and Florida this summer.
That should help bump up the numbers.
At PTI, the volume of cargo coming in and going out was down 23 percent in January of this year compared to the same month last year, which is an unusually large drop for that category.
In other positive PTI Airport stats released this week, the number of scheduled departing seats for March of 2025 is up 9 percent over March of 2024.
As for “load factor” – that is, the average percentage of airplane seats departing from PTI that were filled with passengers – it was 79 percent for November of 2024, apparently the most recent available monthly stat for that category.
