Battered by coronavirus, Sacramento International Airport passenger counts up for now
Sacramento International Airport saw a deep plunge in spring passenger traffic as the coronavirus pandemic continued to batter air travel. Now, a new explosion in virus cases and the state-ordered restrictions that followed could set back further even the modest comeback the airport mounted in June.
In raw numbers, about 2.9 million fewer passengers boarded and deplaned at Sacramento in the second quarter compared with the same three-month span during a record-breaking 2019, airport figures show. More than 3.4 million passengers were recorded at Sacramento International in the 2019 spring quarter, while just more than 516,000 used the airport during this year’s second quarter.
The numbers are only a local snapshot of the pandemic’s toll across the airline industry. Nationwide, air travel all but ceased from the beginning of March through mid-April, dropping 95 percent before recovering slightly heading into July, the Associated Press reported.
Whether accounting for passenger traffic month-over-month and year-over-year; passengers who boarded at Sac International and those who made Sacramento their final stop, all were categories deep in the red in the spring quarter. That included a 94 percent drop in passengers in April from the previous April as state stay-at-home orders and virus fears scrubbed flights, parked planes and emptied Terminals A and B.
The numbers of inbound and outbound passengers are down by more than half for the calendar year ending June compared to last year, the data shows.
Even amid the gloom, Sacramento International showed signs of life in May doubling the 70,000 total passengers who flew into and out of SMF during an anemic April. Passenger totals continued to pull out of their COVID nosedive, doubling again in June to nearly 300,000, airport data showed, even as daily nonstop flights were well below Sacramento’s 170 daily nonstops pre-pandemic.
“We’ve seen a steady increase since March,” airport spokeswoman Samantha Mott said Tuesday.
Now a new surge in coronavirus cases that triggered a new wave of state-ordered closures in 31 of the state’s 58 counties this week could threaten that trend.
Nearly 348,000 Californians have been sickened by the virus and the state recorded its second-highest single-day increase on Tuesday, public health data show. At least 7,227 have died.
The airport’s Mott said it’s too early to predict the potential effect of the new round of closures on air travel into and out of the Capital region, but Visit Sacramento CEO Mike Testa was concerned about the impacts to Sacramento’s already beleaguered hospitality industry.
“We had just started to see business pick up in a positive way,” Testa said Tuesday.
The coronavirus crash not only delivered a heavy blow to Sacramento International, but also to the region’s 140,000 hospitality workers — everyone from housekeeping and kitchen staff to the Uber and Lyft driver — he said.
Visitors bureau hurt, too
Visit Sacramento, supported by hospitality revenues, was hit hard, too. Once a staff of 42 before the pandemic, the regional tourism organization is down to a skeleton crew of 10, Testa said.
Hospitality “is a $3 billion industry in the Sacramento region,” Testa said. “The impact of that is huge.”
Just last July, more than 1.3 million passengers used Sacramento International - a record that broke the previous single-month record of 1.1 million passengers logged in July 2018 - on its way to a record setting year, airport statistics show. The robust numbers were also reflected in restaurant reservations and hotel stays. Sacramento hotel occupancy hit 84 percent last year, Testa said.
“We were setting records every month,” he said. Today, hotel occupancy hovers at 20 to 25 percent.
These days, Testa said, “we’re celebrating a 1-, 2-, 3-percent rise in occupancy (but) it has been going in the right direction.”
‘Sacramento will fare better’ than others
But Testa said Sacramento could still emerge less hard hit than other California cities. The city had already accounted for the loss of the Sacramento Convention Center to an extensive expansion and renovation project and he said the city remains an attractive day and weekend option for travelers reluctant to fly during the pandemic.
“Sacramento will fare better because it is a drive-in destination. (Travelers from the) Bay area and Reno will come and spend a few days in Sacramento. And, with alfresco dining, we’re positioned as a safe visit.”
California had been an early national model of how to control the contagion with its first-in-the-country statewide shutdown, but has seen infections skyrocket in the weeks since Memorial Day. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered a new wave of closures from gyms to indoor shopping malls to indoor worship to try to gain control of the new onslaught of COVID-19 positive cases.
And with a nationwide COVID-19 death toll barreling past 136,000 and states still struggling mightily to contain the epidemic, hopes for an airline industry comeback seem remote.
Across the industry, the nation’s major carriers, American, Delta, United — all with service out of Sacramento International - warned of mass layoffs and furloughs come autumn on disastrous spring results.
Atlanta-based Delta announced it lost $5.7 billion in the second quarter as passenger boardings sank 93 percent.
United Airlines last week told 36,000 of its workers — fully 45 percent of the Chicago-based carrier’s domestic employees — that they could be furloughed in October, including flight attendants, gate agents, maintenance workers and pilots. And, on Wednesday, struggling American Airlines followed suit, the Dallas-based carrier warning that 25,000 of its employees could be laid off in October.
“Growth has stalled. It was growing at a pretty nice clip through June,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian told the Associated Press. “The virus, unfortunately, was also growing.”
This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 1:43 PM.
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