Airport Statistics: December 2003

JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT
PASSENGER LEVELS HIT ALL-TIME HIGH

(Santa Ana, CA) - John Wayne Airport experienced a banner year in 2003, as airport passenger levels hit record highs. With extremely busy Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years holiday travel seasons at the end of the year, the airport ended up serving a total of 8,535,130 passengers during the calendar year – an 8% increase over 2002.

December 2003 was especially busy, with John Wayne Airport serving nearly 470,000 passengers during the Christmas/New Years holiday season. This number is an 8.5% increase from the same time period last year.

December also saw the single busiest travel day in history at John Wayne Airport. On Monday, December 1, 31,518 passengers passed through the airport’s terminal, most either returning from their Thanksgiving holiday or heading back to work.

“Business is definitely good at John Wayne Airport,” said Airport Director Alan Murphy. “We were one of the first airports in the nation to see passenger levels rebound after the 9-11 tragedy. The extent to which our levels have continued to increase, however, is true testimony to the strength of Orange County’s diverse economy.”
“Seemingly, month after month, Airport passenger levels have continued to post significant increases over the same period from last year,” continued Murphy. “Some months we have actually experienced double digit increases.”

With revisions to the 1985 Settlement Agreement between the County of Orange, City of Newport Beach and two community groups, (Airport Working Group and Stop Polluting Our Newport) agreed to all by parties; airport officials have begun the initial planning phase for the expansion of the existing Thomas F. Riley Terminal building. This expansion is necessary to accommodate an increase in passenger capacity levels to 10.3 million annual passengers (MAP) among other revisions.

-SNA- 

748,826

695,284

7.7%

8,535,130

7,903,066

8.0%

371,084

342,052

8.5%

4,274,960

3,957,565

8.0%

377,742

353,232

6.9%

4,260,170

3,945,501

8.0%

1,307

1,491

-12.3%

15,406

15,646

-1.5%

26,910

28,520

-5.6%

349,124

368,627

-5.3%

18,138

20,453

-11.3%

249,551

274,603

-9.1%

7,334

7,039

4.2%

83,927

84,597

-0.8%

1,428

1,023

39.6%

15,485

9,265

67.1%

10

5

100.0%

161

162

-0.6%