Airport passenger traffic soars
While for the time being the name won’t change, T.F. Green Airport continues to show dramatic growth in passenger traffic as more airlines, more destinations and low fares make it an airport of choice.
“It’s great news. It’s an unqualified success of Rhode Island,” said House Majority Leader Rep. K. Joseph Shekarchi Wednesday when told increases in passenger traffic since January were running as high as 24 percent ahead of monthly totals for 2017. Shekarchi said the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC) and the state have a “winning team.”
Shekarchi also made a link to the impact on the state’s economy. He said the growth trend serves to validate private sector investment, especially the development of more hotels, and brings confidence to lending institutions resulting in more development and Rhode Island jobs.
In an exchange of emails, Iftikhar Ahmad, RIAC president and CEO, shared data showing the following percentage growth in monthly passenger traffic since the beginning of the year: January, 16.86 percent; February, 24.92 percent; March, 12.31 percent; April, 22.46 percent and May 21 percent.
Ahmad called the growth “significant.”
Statistics provided on the RIAC website – the most current being April – show total passenger traffic for the month at 392,862 compared to 320,804 for April 2017. Southwest Airlines continues to be Green’s dominant carrier with more than 167,000 passengers for the month.
But clearly Ahmad’s efforts to increase carriers and destinations have had an impact. Frontier Airlines, that wasn’t flying from Green in April 2017, carried more than 36,000 passengers. Likewise Norwegian Air International carried 16,857 passengers; Allegiant, 7,728 passengers and united Express (Air Wisconsin) 5,312 passengers.
The combined passenger traffic for the first four months of this year exceeded 1.3 million, putting Green on track to surpassing the 3.9 million passengers recorded for 2017.
Ahmad called the new low cost carriers the drivers of the growth adding, “Prices are competitive with Boston and the national average.”
Ahmad shared an average fares comparison chart from the Department of Transportation placing the average fare at Green for the first quarter of this year at $308.86 as compared to $320.90 at Logan in Boston. The chart further illustrates the trend for lower Green fares from a high of $374.90 for the second quarter of 2016. Also, as of last year average fares at Green are below those at Logan.
As part of efforts to grow passenger traffic and give Green Airport greater regional name recognition, Shekarchi introduced legislation on behalf of RIAC to change the airport name to Rhode Island International Airport. The family of the late Senator Theodore Francis Green for whom the airport is named raised objections and the measure never came before the House or the Senate for a vote.
