Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) will be the sight of a major economic development announcement on Wednesday, Jan. 26.
However, there was no public mention of that event at a Tuesday, Jan. 25 short meeting of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority – the seven-member board that oversees the operations of PTIA.
One item that was a topic of discussion at the meeting is the state of passenger traffic at the airport that, like other airports around the world, has been hurt tremendously by the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the meeting, which was held via Zoom, PTIA Executive Director Kevin Baker had some relatively gloomy numbers to report to the board.
“Passengers in December were down 25 percent of 2019,” he said.
Airport officials often look at new stats in relation to 2019 since that was the last “normal” year.
“That was kind of a slip back,” Baker said of the December numbers, “but that was because of this new spike in COVID picking up.”
The Omicron variation of COVID-19 has been spreading quickly across the US, but Baker said at the meeting that he hopes the current predictions by medical professionals are true – that the new variation will burn out fast and case numbers will come down quickly.
Baker added, “I think it’s going to be interesting in 2022 to watch not only 2022 over [20]19 – which was the last normal year – but also over 2021, to see how we’re getting out of this morass that we’ve been in.”
On a more positive note, the amount of cargo coming in and out of PTIA continues to grow.
“Cargo was up 59 percent in December over 2019 and, year-to-date, up over 34 percent compared with 2019 – so cargo continues to be a bright spot for us,” Baker said.
He added that, according to other forward-looking data, the passenger outlook for PTIA was positive.
Maybe if the flights weren’t constantly cancelled you see more people in your airport. Tired of the cancellations so we use other airports.
Let’s Go Brandon and Skippy!
It’s this kind of creativity and love that makes G’boro such a pleasure
With only 12 direct destinations out of PTI, it is a FEEDER airport to the major hubs, most often Charlotte and Atlanta. I find it consistently much cheaper to drive to CHLT, store my car there and fly nonstop out of there. Most people I know would drive an hour to save $300 or more.
I’ll start a GoFund tuna page if you’ll just keep driving and don’t come back
Now THAT is funny.
I agree. I only fly out of GSO when I need to be in Philly or Chicago for business. Otherwise it is faster and cheaper to fly out of CLT or RDU. I recall reading that GSO has the 5th highest gate fees due to the upgrades that never go used by FedEx and already low volume of commercial flights to cover the cost of operations.
We used to have better connections, & more flights. Covid, Air Lines, unruly passengers & help, killed all that. It is a horror to fly anywhere, even CLT or ATL.
Personally, I don’t want to fly anywhere unless I have to. Or I win the lottery & fly upfront.
If you are a steady business traveler concerned about value of your time and costs, then PTI is not a viable option. For those of us who are infrequent travelers the convenience of the airport is nice when it is 10 minutes from my front door.