Passenger Traffic Dips Slightly For Lambert in 2013

Lambert-St. Louis International Airport recorded a dip of less than one percent in overall passenger activity for 2013 serving 12,570,000 passengers. That’s roughly 112,000 passengers fewer than in 2012 when Lambert reported 12,683,000 passengers. This past year, Lambert recorded approximately 6,298,000 in enplanements and 6,272,000 in arriving passengers.

Lambert reported a positive finish in the final month of 2013 with December enplanements up 1.8 percent (515,000 vs. 506,000 in Dec. 2012) and arriving passengers up 0.6 percent (495,000 vs 492,000 in December 2012).

This is a bounce back after November saw the biggest drop in passenger enplanements (-7.2% vs. Nov. 2012) during 2013.

“We expected a downturn in November because of the late Thanksgiving holiday pushed it too close for many with travel plans for Christmas,” said Lambert Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge. “Looking at overall trends, this is a just a slight dip after Lambert has seen two straight years of passenger growth in 2011 and 2012.”

For 2013, Southwest Airlines remained the top carrier with a near 48.7 percent market share based on enplaned passengers. Southwest enplaned 3,067,000 passengers in 2013. American is Lambert’s second biggest carrier with a 15.3 percent market share (964,000 enplaned passengers). Delta Air Lines is Lambert’s third largest carrier with a 13.9 percent market share (875,000 enplaned passengers) in 2013.

Lambert recorded 125,000 aircraft operations in 2013 for airlines, general aviation and military aircraft. Lambert’s serves on average 250 daily departures to more than 60 non-stop destinations.