Passenger totals on scheduled Northwest Regional Airport flights dropped slightly in January compared to January 2014 but overall passenger numbers were up.
January’s number for scheduled flights was 17,114 – 389 shy of January 2014’s 17,503.
But, says airport manager Carman Hendry, January’s charter passenger figure of 2,768 puts the past month’s overall number at 19,882.
“In January 2014, our charter total was 350,” he said.
All of the charter traffic comes from flights arranged by Hawkair for crew changes and turnover tied to Rio Tinto Alcan’s Kitimat smelter reconstruction project.
The charter passenger totals will drop as major work projects wind up with the completion of the smelter project in the middle of this year and Hendry also anticipates a slight decline in regular passengers.
But he’s still anticipating a busy 2015 although not as busy as 2014 which saw just under 253,368 passengers arriving and leaving on scheduled flights.
And 2014’s passenger total was 43 per cent higher that 2013’s figure of 177,294.