SFO Just Passed Huge Milestone It Hasn’t Seen Since the Pandemic Began

May 22, 2023

May 19—San Francisco International Airport surpassed a long-awaited milestone last week — and its summer season is forecasted to be the busiest since the pandemic began.

The airport saw passenger traffic exceed 70,000 travelers on two separate weekdays this month, figures it hadn't seen in three years, airport spokespersons said.

With air travel revitalized, SFO officials said they expect approximately 140,000 passengers to pass through its gates on May 26, the official start to the summer travel season.

In the past year, all three of the Bay Area's major airports had almost rebounded to pre-COVID levels, including SFO, which had seen a slower recovery than the others, The Chronicle reported. But by last winter, SFO still hadn't made a full rebound, tracking passenger traffic at only 84% of pre-pandemic levels.

A surge of summer travelers in 2022 saw passenger traffic return to about 75% of pre-pandemic levels, spokespersons told The Chronicle in June.

This year, SFO is forecasting the highest level of passenger traffic since the pandemic began, with 14.9 million travelers expected at the airport between Memorial Day and Labor Day, which represents about 85% of summer travel levels in 2019.

Spokespersons for the airport said they predict about 127,000 passengers per day at SFO, down from its average of 157,501 daily passengers before the pandemic. In 2020, the average number of travelers per day was 44,885 per day, and in 2022, it crept up to 81,906, they said.

SFO spokespersons have estimated that the number of annual passengers will reach 46 million in 2023, up significantly from 16.42 million in 2020. In 2022, its annual count rose to 42.28 million, spokespersons said. In 2019, annual counts reached 57.48 million.

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