The international airport in Southern California recently reported on the amount passengers that took domestic or international flights in the month of February. Ontario International Airport (ONT) officials announced that the passenger traffic remained strong in February and had actually increased by 15% over the last year. The number of passengers in February was almost 413,000 total people.

Domestic flights slightly increase

The number of passengers that flew domestic flights from Ontario International Airport increased by 12.75%. This comes out to almost 391,000 passengers flying domestically through the Ontario airport. In February 2022, there were less than 347,000 reported passengers.

The year-to-date numbers for passengers traveling through ONT have reached nearly 700,000, with 670,000 of these passengers traveling domestically. This is nearly a 19% increase in domestic passengers but a 20.7% increase in overall passengers.

International flights almost double

Ontario International Airport also reported a strong increase in international flying passengers. Out of the 413,000 reported passengers in February this year, 21,000 of these passengers were traveling internationally. This is nearly double the reported international passengers of February of last year, which had less than 11,000 passengers flying internationally.

The year-to-date numbers also showed an increase in international passengers through Ontario International Airport. The year-to-date number of international passengers at this time last year was reported as 27,367. This year, the Ontario International Airport reported over 45,000 passengers. This large jump was nearly a 66% change compared to last year.

With the increase of passengers flying both domestically and internationally, the Ontario International Airport is the fourth-ranked medium to large-size airport that is experiencing double-digit seat growth. This is based on the industry trade association Airlines for America and compares this year to 2019 data prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, no other California airports ranked in the top 10 of the 65 rated airports.

Cargo and freight changes

Although the Ontario International Airport reported strong numbers of passengers flying through the airport, the cargo numbers declined slightly. The recorded commercial freight and mail shipments decreased by about 7% in total volume. The freight numbers, in terms of tons of cargo, declined by over 8%, whereas the mail volume increased by 2.39%, compared to February 2022.

The Ontario International Airport saw almost 130,000 tons of total air cargo year-to-date in 2022. However, this year the airport saw just under 120,000 total tons. This was a decrease of just over 8%. Specifically, freight cargo saw a nearly 9% drop, as the airport saw 120,500 tons of freight last year and only 110,000 tons of freight cargo in 2023. The mail cargo numbers were comparable, registering less than a 1% drop. There were only 36 fewer tons of mail cargo flown out of Ontario International Airport compared to the first two months of last year.