Sonoma County airport passenger volume in May up 5% from April

Passenger volume flying in and out of Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport last month dropped 90% in May compared to the previous year, according to new figures from airport officials. While the numbers remain grim, they are an improvement from April’s year-over-year passenger count, which amounted to a 96% drop.

“The way we’re trending now, it’s looking like we’ll be about 85% down for June,” said airport manager Jon Stout.

Combined, the Santa Rosa airport’s three commercial carriers – Alaska Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines— flew 3,843 passengers in May, more than double the 1,407 passengers in April.

“It’s been gradually increasing, (though) not significant improvements,” Stout said, noting the airport isn’t doing any polling right now, so there’s no data suggesting why people are flying. “Everything is still in transition as things open up more. We’re not fully out of shelter-in-place, so travel is still restricted.”

Alaska Airlines in May flew 1,771 passengers, a 93.1% drop from May 2019. Alaska’s load factor – the measure of how full its aircraft were on average – was 32%, down 61.4% from a year earlier.

Alaska so far in June has canceled fewer flights on a day-to-day basis since May, and on July 1 will bring back daily service to Portland, Stout said. The carrier continues its daily service to Los Angeles, Seattle and San Diego.

American Airlines last month carried 1,900 passengers through Santa Rosa, down 74.9% compared to a year earlier. The carrier’s load factor was 25% in May, down 69.9% from May 2019.

American’s passenger counts have improved, Stout said, so going into July, the carrier will return its daily Phoenix flight to seven days, after having gone down to five days a week. The daily Dallas flight was suspended in June and will return July 7.

Meanwhile, United Airlines in May served 172 passengers via Sonoma County, compared with 4,933 in May 2019 – a 96.5% drop. The carrier’s load factor last month was 12%, compared with 76% a year earlier.

United, which has been providing service to San Francisco on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, will go to five days starting July 10, adding Saturday and Sunday.

Looking forward, Stout noted the approach is to wait and see how the phases of recovery continue and how flare-ups are handled.

“We’re seeing progress, but we also don’t want it to happen too fast and have to go backwards,” he said.