As California residents stay home, airport traffic suffers at Sacramento International, SFO
The coronavirus pandemic that has ground California to a halt is also taking a toll on passenger traffic at airports in the Bay Area and in Sacramento.
Even before the Bay Area’s six-county shutdown earlier in the week and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide stay-at-home order Thursday affecting 40 million Californians, carriers were dramatically shedding flights from their schedules while public health officials were discouraging all but essential travel.
How steep the declines were at Sacramento International Airport for the first half of March are yet unclear — traffic data is not available until April, according to airport spokeswoman Samantha Mott — but a troubling report earlier this week from the airport’s biggest carrier could be a sign of what’s ahead.
“It’s down definitely,” Mott said of traffic at SMF. “We’re seeing spot cancellations at the moment. We’re seeing more folks taking guidance from the governor and rescheduling those flights.“
President Donald Trump this week continued to make clear the administration was prepared to offer economic relief for the airline industry, which is anticipating a financial crisis as more flights are grounded or severely underbooked by passengers fearful of contracting the coronavirus during travel.
A statement on Monday from 60 of the world’s largest air carriers predicted up to $113 billion in revenue losses for the industry.
The State Department on Thursday issued a “Global Level 4 Health Advisory” urging Americans not to travel internationally at all and to return to the United States if they can, which could lead to further airline cuts.
And on Thursday, American Airlines said it would be grounding 55,000 flights in April an parking 450 planes — about half of its fleet — in response to decreased demand. According to The Dallas Morning News, American Airlines is taking out a $1 billion line of credit from Citibank to get through the next few months.
Impacts in Sacramento
A local key indicator will be Southwest Airlines. More than half of Sacramento International’s customers board Southwest flights, Mott said.
The low-cost carrier will cut flights by at least 20 percent starting April 14 and continuing through June 5, it stated in a grim report Monday to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Southwest marked “dramatic declines in passenger bookings in March ... as well as an unprecedented increase in close-in trip cancellations,” it said in the report.
Flights through March 15 were only two-thirds of capacity with flights only half-full in recent days, airline officials said while predicting yet more of the same heading into the spring quarter.
“As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic grows, and based on current booking and cancellation trends, we expect revenue trends for the remainder of March and second quarter to deteriorate further,” the Monday report read.
On Friday, security check lines in Terminal A — home to American, Delta and United — and Terminal B — where Southwest is located — were mostly empty during midday at Sacramento airport, though passenger levels are typically their highest in standard morning and evening rush-hour times. The normally bustling entrances have been seen sparse on several occasions for more than a week by Bee journalists and readers.
Sacramento, however, had marked a positive start to the year. More than 495,000 people boarded flights out of SMF in January — a 9.1 percent increase over the same month a year ago, paced by the more than 257,000 passengers who flew Southwest, according to Sacramento County Airport System figures.
Passenger traffic in Bay Area down
Reporting Friday by the San Jose Mercury News showed how steep the declines were at the Bay Area’s three major airports in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.
Passthrough traffic — the numbers of people who pass through security — in the first half of March was markedly down.
San Francisco International Airport saw nearly 674,000 people pass through security in the first two weeks of March — a 29 percent drop from the same two-week span in 2019 when the airport tallied nearly 945,000 passthroughs — SFO officials told the Mercury News.
Similar plunges in passenger passthroughs were also reported at Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International and Oakland International Airport, the newspaper said.
Airports have not been immune to infection, with the Los Angeles Times reporting at least nine positive cases of coronavirus found among workers and passengers, including a police officer, though none at SMF. Airport officials across the state have stepped up cleaning procedures and taken other precautions to stem the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Entire traffic industry affected
Economic support for airlines, cruise ships, hotels and other industries being adversely affected by the spread of the coronavirus could be included in Congress’s next legislative response to the global pandemic, according to senior congressional aides familiar with the discussions.
Less than two weeks after passing an $8 billion emergency funding bill, and as lawmakers complete negotiations on a second measure aimed at helping individuals by providing additional access to COVID-19 tests and mandatory paid sick leave, members of Congress are now discussing how to help hard-hit businesses in a third relief package.
“It’s certainly something that’s on the table,” one congressional source familiar with negotiations told McClatchy, referring to industry support, “but what that looks like and what industries would receive assistance is very much up in the air.”
Other industries are also expected to make requests for assistance in the days and weeks ahead.
Airports Council International, which represents airports, announced on Monday that commercial airports were now on track to lose a total of $8.7 billion in 2020.
Major cruise ship companies are suspending operation for weeks after the coronavirus outbreak, with administration officials among those urging older Americans not to go on cruises for the time being.
Hotels, restaurants and other businesses in the hospitality sector are also struggling as more Americans are staying home to contain the spread of the virus.
This story was originally published March 20, 2020 at 1:54 PM.
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