North Dakota’s airline passenger boarding numbers were relatively flat in July, compared with July, 2021.
State Aeronautics Commission director Kyle Wanner said just under 90,000 passengers boarded commercial airlines in July. He said that’s down by about three percent, compared with July 2021. But Wanner said that’s to be expected.
"Our airlines are still having issues with adding additional capacity," Wanner said. "They still cite workforce issues. And a lot of the airports just haven't been able to get the airlines to add additional flights or more seats. That's really the difficulty right now."
Wanner said the Commission recently did an analysis of the amount of seats available now in comparison to where they were back in 2019, pre-pandemic.
"We're still about 13 to 15 percent down on the amount of seats available back then, to what is available now," Wanner said.
But Wanner said the year-to-date numbers are still very good. He said the boardings are up about 25 percent from 2021 levels.
