It’s been 33 years since RDU had a year like 2020. So how bad was it?
Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, Raleigh-Durham International Airport served fewer passengers last year than in any year since 1987.
Fewer than 4.9 million travelers passed through RDU in 2020, down from a record 14.2 million the year before. About half of the 2020 passengers flew in the first three months of the year, when it appeared that RDU was on pace to set another record.
But demand for air travel cratered as COVID-19 cases rose across the country and businesses and governments pulled back and shut down. Fewer than 40,000 passengers flew through RDU in April, about the same as a typical day in 2019.
Business has rebounded some but remains depressed. The final week of the year, starting Dec. 28, was the busiest at RDU since the pandemic began, with 112,000 arriving and departing passengers. That’s down 56% from the same week last year.
Still, the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines gives the travel industry reason for optimism, said Michael Landguth, RDU’s president and CEO.
“The aviation industry has recovered from many economic and health crises in its hundred-year history, and it will recover from COVID-19,” Landguth said in a written statement. “With widespread distribution of vaccines, we are optimistic that passengers will regain confidence in flying and get back to traveling for business or to visit family and friends.”
Airlines have begun to resume flights they suspended last year; American is flying to Washington’s Reagan National Airport again starting this month, and Delta will resume nonstop flights from RDU to Austin and Jacksonville on Feb. 11 and to Las Vegas on March 2.
Airlines now offer nonstop flights from RDU to 38 destinations. That’s down from 57 destinations, including five international ones, before the pandemic but up from 25 at the lowest point in air travel last year.
In December, airlines averaged 102 departures a day from RDU, down from 223 the same month in 2019.
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 2:59 PM with the headline "It’s been 33 years since RDU had a year like 2020. So how bad was it?."
