Aug. 25—For the second month in a row, Colorado Springs Airport saw a drop in traffic compared to the previous year.

Enplanements, or the number of travelers boarding planes at the Colorado Springs Airport, hit 101,756 in July, a 5.5% decrease from the same month last year, according to airport traffic reports. That followed a 3.8% year-over-year decline in June, the first such drop since Southwest Airlines launched service in Colorado Springs in March 2021.

Greg Phillips, the city's aviation director, said the downward trend can be attributed to a mixture of factors including higher fares, weather that contributed to nationwide cancellations and pilot and crew shortages.

"It's the same thing we saw in June," Phillips said. "I think that we will continue to see for a little while."

Phillips emphasized that cancellations create ripple effects across the whole country. While Colorado Springs is less impacted than some larger hubs, its not immune.

"If you saw perfect weather everyday you wouldn't see as many cancellations," Phillips said.

But Phillips said some airlines serving the Springs saw optimistic outcomes from July's data when it came to load factor (the percentage of available seats filled by passengers) after it jumped from 79% in July 2021 to 82.3% in 2022.

Southwest showed the highest increase in load factor with a 7.1% increase from the year prior. Frontier saw a 15.8% decrease in load factor and Delta saw a 0.3% decrease. United and American saw a 0.2% and 2.9% increase in load factor respectively.

Airlines like to see load factors in the 80% to 85% range if not higher, Phillips said. Southwest saw an 81.2% load factor.

"That makes the airlines happy and makes them think of what we can add," Phillips said. "But we have to get to that point before they think of adding more (routes)."

Phillips said the load factor was better than last year because the flights Southwest offered were "more tailored" flights than the initial year of service when the airline was trying to figured out what worked best.

While the downward trend in boardings might stick around a bit longer, Phillips expects numbers to pick up during the holiday season, especially with the addition of a seasonal route Southwest will offer to San Diego.

"Let's use those flights and show Southwest we do want those (on) more than just a holiday basis," Phillips said.

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