March Passenger Traffic at OAK Leaps Ahead with a 59.6% Month-to-Month Increase

May 7, 2021

Oakland International Airport (OAK), the second busiest airport in the San Francisco Bay Area, reports rebounding passenger and cargo traffic for March 2021. The airport saw a record month-to-month increase in traffic as it continues to outpace other airports in the region.

In March 2021, passenger traffic at OAK increased by 59.6 percent from what was reported for February. The airport saw 182,147 more passengers than it did in February. Air cargo, also rebounding, was up 22.6 percent from February.

March 2021 passenger and cargo statistics:

Oakland International Airport saw 487,610 total passengers in March, up 59.6 percent from February with 305,463 passengers.

In March, a total of 248,168 passengers departed OAK’s runways. Of those, 196,640 were local boarding and 51,528, a two-year high, were connecting passengers. The growing number of connecting passengers reflects an increasing preference for passengers to choose the convenience of OAK as the connecting point for their travels.

There were 8,319 international-arriving passengers in March.

March 2021 passenger traffic was up 7.93 percent compared to March 2020.

On a rolling 12-month basis, although now steadily recovering, traffic is still off 72.47 percent with 3,482,835 passengers this year compared to 12,650,333 during the same period a year ago.

116 million pounds of air cargo were transported, up 18.6 percent in a year-over-year comparison and 22.6 percent from February.

“As more people are fully vaccinated, we see traffic building toward pre-pandemic levels” said Bryant L. Francis, Port of Oakland Director of Aviation. “We appreciate that local travelers are choosing to Fly OAK First as they return to the sky and this is evident with OAK outpacing other local airports in recovering a greater percentage of our normal passenger traffic,” he added.