Fewer people are traveling by air nationwide, but Sacramento International Airport is faring better than other U.S. airports.
In October, the most recent month for which statistics are available, the Sacramento airport served 796,440 passengers on departing and incoming flights, down 10.3 percent from 887,997 in October last year.
Federal officials said the average passenger traffic decline at airports nationwide is 14 percent as airlines have cut back on flights and fewer consumers are flying during the economic downturn.
At Sacramento International Airport, the number of seats available on all airlines serving the airport is 12 percent less this month compared with November a year ago.
In the 10 months through October, the airport handled 10,232,315 passengers, down 5.1 percent from 10,783,000 through October a year ago.
November passenger totals for the airport will be released in two weeks, but they are expected to be down compared with a year ago.
"I think in general you can say yes, they will be down because our (passenger) capacity is down," said airport spokeswoman Gina Swankie. "We have lost Aloha and ExpressJet flights, and Southwest has cut flights."
Gary Kelly, chairman and chief executive of Dallas-based Southwest, the largest carrier in Sacramento, said Tuesday that travel demand nationwide slumped sharply in November, and the airline will not expand its fleet next year.
That's significant news coming from Southwest, which has experienced growth while other major airlines have cut back this decade.
"October was a bang-up month, almost unexplainably strong," Kelly said. "The trends changed in November" after the stock market meltdown.
Kelly said Southwest's new schedule out in January will include a passenger capacity cut of 4 percent to 5 percent in the first quarter, slightly less than the airline's previous goal of a 5 percent to 6 percent reduction.
Southwest said passenger traffic nationwide was 6.5 million last month, a 10.7 percent decline from 7.3 million in November a year ago. The average plane was 63.2 percent full, down 6.1 percentage points from November 2007.
Southwest passenger declines at the Sacramento airport have been comparatively modest this year. In October, the airport handled 430,645 Southwest passengers, down only 1.2 percent from 435,969 in October 2007. Through 10 months this year, the airport handled about 4.34 million Southwest passengers, down 3.7 percent from about 4.5 million in that period last year.
Call The Bee's Mark Glover, (916) 321-1184. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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