Once again, the number of passengers at the Northwest Regional Airport have hit records with September 2012 being the busiest September the airport’s ever seen.
The month saw 12,700 passengers fly either to or from Terrace making it the second busiest month this year, topped by August which saw 13,808 passengers through the doors.
As of last month’s end, this year’s passenger count clocked in at 103,741 — keeping steady the trend of increased traffic compared to former years.
Airport officials say the number of people who take passenger flights to and from the airport may decrease over the next few months, but will pick back up again.
“August is usually our peak travel time and then (numbers) start waning,” said airport manager Carman Hendry. “Then it goes down until January and then it starts to progress back up again.”
October’s start marked a 16 per cent increase in traffic compared to last fiscal year and a 15 per cent increase for the calendar year, Hendry continued.
September 2011 saw 11,291 passengers, meaning a 12.5 per cent climb in traffic for September 2012.
Hendry said the increase in construction and industrial-project-related workers travelling here and back again have been keeping numbers up.
“There is an awful lot of construction workers coming through, a lot of business people that
are related to the Rio Tinto modernization project and the hydro project and the Forest Kerr project,” he said. “I’ve heard rumours from the airlines that their load factors are doing quite well.”
Nevertheless, Air Canada is planning to drop its first and last flights of the day by October’s end, he said.
“But, they will increase flights during the day if they need,” he said.