San Jose International Airport and Oakland International Airport both might have to depend on robust passenger flight activity during the holidays to help ward off a malaise in air travel for both travel hubs.
So far in 2024, passengers are traveling through San Jose International Airport and San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport in smaller numbers than was the case in 2023, new reports show.
Vehicles travel near Oakland International Airport, Nov. 13, 2024. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
During the one-year period that ended in October, San Jose Airport handled 11.82 million passengers. That was down 2.3% from the 12.1 million passengers who transited through the South Bay aviation hub in 2023.
Similarly, over the 12 months that ended in October, Oakland International Airport accommodated 11.04 million passengers. That was down 1.8% from the 11.24 million passengers that traveled through the East Bay travel complex in 2023.
The faltering travel figures mean that both airports are depending on holiday travel to help lift the aviation centers above last year’s totals.
A persistent post-coronavirus slump in business travel appears to have weighed down passenger activity at the two airports.
One bright spot for both airports: The passenger trips for October were higher than in September — although they were below the total for the same month in 2023.
San Jose Airport handled 1.04 million passengers in October, up 6.6% from September but down 1.3% from October 2023.
Oakland Airport accommodated slightly more than 871,500 passengers in October, up 2.1% from September but down 8.8% from the same month the year before.
San Francisco International Airport’s latest figures weren’t posted by midday on Wednesday.
Oakland Airport officials said preliminary figures compiled from TSA statistics indicated that Thanksgiving weekend travel this year was 2% below the totals from the TSA estimates for the same Thanksgiving 2023 period.
San Jose Airport officials said they were awaiting the full report for November.
The fading travel trends for the two airports represent a setback for the aviation hubs, which had been showing improvements in passenger activity — until this year.
In 2020, the economic maladies unleashed by the coronavirus afflicted the worldwide and local travel and hotel sectors, causing aviation activity to crater.
San Jose International Airport handled a puny 4.71 million passengers in 2020, a nosedive from the record-high 15.65 million passengers the South Bay travel complex accommodated in 2019, the final full year before the start of the coronavirus-linked business shutdowns.
Oakland International Airport handled 4.62 million passengers in 2020, a plunge from the 13.38 million passengers the East Bay transportation facility handled in 2019.
Both airports, however, managed to increase their passenger trip numbers in 2021, 2022 and 2023. This winning streak, however, is jeopardized by the sluggish pace of travel activity so far in 2024.
San Jose and Oakland airports also remain far below the lofty altitudes they had achieved in 2019.
The 11.82 million passengers handled by San Jose Airport during the most recent 12 months were 24.5% below the 2019 total.
Oakland Airport’s 11.04 million passenger trips over the one year ending in October were down 17.5% from the 2019 total.