Adding more than a million new passengers in just one year, Mineta San Jose International Airport maintained its torrid growth in the first quarter of 2017, far surpassing both the national average and the strong growth rates of its competitors in the San Francisco Bay area.
Thanks to dozens of new flights, SJC recorded 10.2 percent year-over-year passenger growth in the first three months of this year, compared to the first quarter of 2016. The airport has now surpassed 11 million annual passengers on a rolling 12-month basis. From April 2016 through March 2017, SJC welcomed 11.03 million total passengers – representing growth of more than a million passengers from the year prior.
SJC is rapidly gaining ground on fellow San Francisco Bay area airports Oakland International and San Francisco International. SJC’s first quarter growth of 10.2 percent eclipses Oakland’s healthy growth rate of 6.1 percent in that same period, and is more than four times the first-quarter growth rate of much-bigger SFO (2.3 percent). And, preliminary passenger numbers for the month of April at SJC show an increase of more than 18 percent over the previous year.
“If our projections are right, every single day this summer our passenger counts passing through SJC will exceed those of our busiest days – Thanksgiving weekend – in 2016,” said San Jose Interim Director of Aviation John Aitken. “This huge growth in the past couple of years is a tremendous tribute to our airline partners who are investing in San Jose, and to our local community which continues embracing all of the new flight choices offered at SJC.”
