Here's what's fueling Indianapolis Airports record-breaking passenger highs
Three years after the pandemic, Indianapolis International Airport has officially bounced back, according to new travel data the airport released Thursday.
The airport saw over 4.7 million passengers in the first six months of 2023, breaking the 2019 record.
"We've got a little bit more passengers than 2019, which is really, really fabulous for the economy," Mario Rodriguez, director of the Indianapolis Airport Authority, told IndyStar. "It just shows the strength of the local economy and the resiliency of Indiana itself."
The number of people flying out of the airport, or enplanements, were up 11.5% in 2023 so far, higher than other airports in the Midwest, said Rodriguez. June was the biggest June to date in the airport's history, with over 885,000 total passengers flying in or out, a 14% increase from 2022.
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In particular, travel volume increased around big events, like spring break in March, which saw more passengers than pre-pandemic levels, and around Memorial Day for the Indy 500, airport officials said.
With these increases, there's also been some changes in passenger makeup. Business travel is back, to a degree, but many remote workers are combining traveling for work and for fun. That's a change that was coming anyway, but was accelerated by the pandemic, Rodriguez argued.
"COVID has compressed about a decade's worth of change into about three years," Rodriguez said. "So you're getting a change in the way people travel because they're traveling on business and pleasure simultaneously."
In 2021, Rodriguez told IndyStar he thought air travel would bounce back around 2024 or 2025. But he was thrilled when what he referred to as a conservative estimate for when travel would return to pre-pandemic levels in Indy was accelerated.
"Passengers are traveling for leisure and we initially thought that the big bump was, for lack of a better term ... pent up demand for leisure travel, but it's continued," he said. "So, we're very happy."
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New flights and big events to come
New routes also contributed to increased numbers. So far this year, the airport added or brought back five nonstop flights for passengers traveling to Indy, including a nonstop Allegiant flight from Indianapolis to Orlando for the Purdue Citrus Bowl game and two seasonal Frontier Airlines flights to Phoenix and Raleigh-Durham.
Additionally, Southwest resumed flying its nonstop flights to Kansas City, twice a day during the week and once on Sundays, as well as a seasonal nonstop flight to San Diego. Delta is also planning to add back its nonstop flight from Indianapolis to Salt Lake City next March.
Between the NBA All Star game in February, the USA Swimming Olympic Trials in June and Taylor Swift's three-night stop in Indy in November, hundreds of thousands of visitors will be traveling to Indianapolis in 2024 — many presumably flying in from out of town. Rodriguez said they're gearing up for even higher travel volumes next year.
"We're projecting a bigger increase," he said. "And also for those peak times, we staff up a lot of customer service positions and assist our airline and especially our TSA partners, to process people quickly and efficiently and make sure that everybody's well taken care of."
Contact business reporter Claire Rafford at 317-617-3402 or crafford@gannett.com.
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