Sonoma County airport April passenger numbers climb 7% as new flights, terminal are on approach this summer

Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport is gearing up for a busy summer of travel activity.

“Right now, (looking at) the forecast for the remainder of the year, August looks like it'll be our peak travel month, based on our airline schedules,” Airport Manager Jon Stout said Wednesday.

That projection is also based on Avelo Airlines launching its central Oregon flights starting June 23, he said.

The regional airport’s passenger traffic has been steadily climbing this year, evidenced most recently in April’s passenger figures, released Tuesday.

For the first four months of the year, the Sonoma County airport has flown 183,512 passengers, up 7% from a year earlier, according to the numbers.

Comparatively, the regional facility flew 52,431 passengers through the first four months of 2021, and 95,182 passengers in the same time span in 2020. For context, the first four months of 2020 included two pre-pandemic months.

Looking at the statistics only for April 2023, the Sonoma County airport’s three commercial carriers — Alaska Airlines, American Airlines and Avelo Airlines — collectively flew 56,615 passengers. That’s up 6.7% from a year earlier, and nearly 7,000 more travelers than in March, according to the report.

Alaska Airlines in April flew 35,045 passengers through the Santa Rosa facility, up 15.7% from a year earlier. Its load factor — the measure of how full airplanes are on average — was 83%. The carrier flew 30,363 passengers through the airport in March.

American Airlines flew 10,683 passengers through the Santa Rosa airport last month, up 16.4% from the year prior and nearly 3,000 more than the number of passengers served in March. American’s load factor in April was 81%.

Avelo Airlines last month flew 10,887 passengers through the Sonoma County airport, down 8.5% from the year prior, and roughly 500 fewer passengers than the carrier flew in March. Avelo’s load factor was 90%.

When Avelo next month debuts its flights to central Oregon, it will mark the budget carrier’s fourth destination served at the regional airport. Avelo also flies to its Burbank hub, Las Vegas and Palm Springs, the latter on a seasonal basis. The Oregon flight is also expected to be seasonal, depending on how the market performs, Stout said last month.

Avelo will fly to Bend/Redmond on Mondays and Fridays on a Boeing Next-Generation 737 aircraft. Introductory one-way fares will start at $34, and customers can make reservations at AveloAir.com.

The Sonoma County airport is also getting closer to the finish line of its $40 million terminal improvement and modernization project, Stout said.

“We're still looking at roughly mid-July for substantial completion,” said Stout, adding it will take another four-to-six weeks for project closeout, final commissioning, training and turnover.

The long-awaited construction project kicked off in November 2020 after eight years of planning, changes, disruptions and delays, as the Business Journal and sister publication The Press Democrat have been following and reporting about along the way.

Schematic reviews of what might be needed for the airport master plan began even longer ago, in 2012.

Once complete, the terminal will have renovated 7,000 square feet and added 33,000 square feet, bringing the total square footage to approximately 56,000 square feet, as previously reported.