Better get there early: Why Sacramento International Airport is getting busier

It appears air travel has fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearly 1.2 million passengers traveled through Sacramento International Airport in July, the second-busiest month in the airport’s history, airport officials said this week. The busiest month for SMF was July 2019, when 1,230,600 passengers arrived or took off from the airport.

Southwest Airlines is still by far SMF’s biggest carrier. The airline accounted for nearly 660,000 passengers in July, far ahead of United, Delta and American airlines, according to Sacramento County airport data.

Airport officials urged passengers to arrive early for flights this weekend, a busy holiday stretch. Parking can be a challenge, with part of the east economy lot closed for construction. An airport website shows how many available spots are in the parking lots. Airport officials also expect a busy stretch during the Indigenous Peoples’ Day weekend in October.

Sacramento’s increase in passengers mirrors a national trend.

Daily air travel is more than twice what it was in 2020 and up significantly over last year, according to data from the federal Transportation Security Administration. More than 2.3 million people passed through U.S. airports on Thursday, the highest number for that date in years.

“People are just traveling more now,” said Sacramento airports spokesman Scott Johnston. “It’s summer and we’re coming out of a pandemic.”

As air travel picks up, Sacramento International has added two new destinations this year.

Southwest began flying to Santa Barbara in June, linking the capital region with a coastal California tourism hot spot.

Also in June, flights to Vancouver, British Columbia resumed out of Sacramento after a 26-month hiatus.