Sacramento airport is setting travel records. High-speed rail could change that
The Sacramento International Airport already broke the monthly passenger record it set in June — partly with July plane trips that could one day be replaced by travel on California’s high-speed rail.
The Sacramento County Department of Airports said in a news release that in July, 1,328,712 travelers passed through the airport that is currently undergoing a $1.3 billion expansion. In June, the airport’s prior monthly traveler record was broken with 1,296,818 passengers.
A large portion of those trips were to destinations within California. Sacramento to Los Angeles International Airport is the most popular route, according to the most recent week of data from FlightRadar24; combining the LAX route with flights to and from Burbank, Los Angeles County was far and away the most popular.
And data provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Transportation Library shows that 29% of sampled domestic passengers leaving Sacramento between Jan. 1, 2023, and March 31, 2025, flew to destinations within California. A substantial majority went either to Los Angeles County or to the San Diego International Airport. Of the library’s sample of domestic passengers arriving in Sacramento, 20% came from LAX, the Hollywood Burbank Airport, the Long Beach Airport or San Diego International.
Many of these flights could be replaced by train trips upon the full completion of the bullet train project. Each train would have 900 seats, about seven times more than the average plane carrying people from one California city to another, a 2019 high-speed rail analysis found. Construction is already underway on a 119-mile segment between Bakersfield and Merced, and the California High-Speed Rail Authority has obtained full environmental clearance between downtown San Francisco and Los Angeles. Sacramento and San Diego stops would be added to the system after the San Francisco-to-L.A. route is finished.
A spokesperson for the Sacramento County Department of Airports did not respond to a request for a comment on whether the county factors the state’s future bullet train into its airport investment decisions.
How much do Californians spend on bullet train, Sacramento airport?
President Donald Trump has criticized California’s high-speed rail as a waste, and his administration pulled $4 billion in federal funding this year. The state has sued over the decision. But recent polling shows that despite controversy, delays and cost overruns in the project that won 53% of votes in 2008, the bullet train remains a popular initiative. Politico and researchers from UC Berkeley’s Citrin Center surveyed 1,445 California voters after Trump pulled federal funds. They found that 62% still supported high-speed rail in the state.
California’s bullet train has taken flak for its projected costs: It’s estimated that the 494-mile line from the Bay Area to Los Angeles will cost over $100 billion to complete, an estimate that’s gone up from about $70 billion in 2012.
But the rail authority has argued that, in the long-term, a train system would save money by diverting travelers away from roads and airports. The cost of maintaining and expanding those non-rail transportation facilities is significant. In the capital region, Caltrans currently expects to spend $529 million adding lanes to 7 miles of Highway 50 and, separately, $465 million to add lanes to 8½ miles of Interstate 80 and another $240 million to shore up and widen the Capital City Freeway bridge over the American River. These three projects together cost more than $1.2 billion to enlarge and improve about 17 miles of existing infrastructure.
Currently, Sacramento County is in the construction phase of a $1.3 billion airport expansion project dubbed SMForward. The project is largely focused on Terminal B, which serves Southwest Airlines, a major carrier to L.A. County and San Diego airports. A large portion of the county’s airport expansion budget — $400 million — is dedicated to building a 5,500-spot parking garage for the terminal. This year, the county issued $415 million in bonds to make Terminal B larger with six new gates as well as other additions.
Terminal B’s last major overhaul was completed in 2011, when the old terminal was replaced. That project was nicknamed the Big Build, and The Bee reported in 2009 that it was “a monster, with a $1.1 billion budget.”
