New reports on air travel are providing an encouraging outlook for the sector. Passenger traffic at Denver International Airport in January was up 2.9 percent from January 2009, the largest monthly increase since year-over-year traffic rose 4.8 percent in December 2008.
The 3,776,403 travelers who passed through DIA in January made it the airport’s busiest January on record.
Separately, a pickup in travel demand led the International Air Transport Association to halve its international loss forecast for 2010 to $2.8 billion, compared with the $5.6 billion loss forecast in December.
Nationally, the number of scheduled domestic and international passengers in December dropped 0.6 percent from December 2008. But Bureau of Transportation Statistics records show the traffic decline is slowing.
For all of 2009, the number of domestic and international passengers carried on U.S. airlines fell 5.3 percent from 2008. Ann Schrader, The Denver Post
