Local

Passenger traffic at CLT climbs to highest level since pandemic began

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Recovery from the ongoing pandemic took an upward turn this spring at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. That’s as passenger traffic at the local airport showed marked improvement in March, climbing to its highest level since the pandemic decimated air travel last spring.

The latest figures from airport officials show that the number of travelers flying through Charlotte Douglas jumped to about 3.2 million in March — up 39.4% from the same month a year prior, when the nation started feeling the widespread impact of Covid-19. CLT had been coming off another record-setting year in 2019 in which its passenger count eclipsed 50 million, but traffic dipped to about 2.3 million people in March 2020 — nearly cut in half from the year before.

The 3.2 million or so people that either boarded or departed a plane at the Charlotte airport this past March also soared above the 2.1 million reported passengers in February. Month over month, passenger traffic was up 52.2%, according to the data in CLT’s Airline and Cargo Activity Summary report. That report, released Thursday, is based off self-reported data from airlines operating at the airport.

Passenger traffic at CLT hadn’t surpassed the 3 million mark since before the pandemic — in February 2020, when it hit 3.93 million. It last reached a pandemic high of nearly 2.8 million people in October.

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