St. Pete-Clearwater airport traffic up in June, but still way down from 2019

June passenger traffic at St. Peter-Clearwater International Airport was down 38 percent from the previous year.

For now, this still qualifies as reason for optimism.

The airport saw 141,561 passengers pass through its gates in June — nearly double the traffic in May — as travel and business operations eased a bit from the peak of the coronavirus shutdown. June’s 38 percent year-over-year decline was an improvement from 61 percent and 97 percent drops in May and April, respectively.

June represented the first full month since the pandemic that the airport was routing to nearly all of its 53 regular destinations, said spokeswoman Michele Routh. Sun Country Airlines will resume charter flights from PIE to Gulfport/Biloxi, Miss. on July 19.

Allegiant, the airport’s dominant carrier, reported Thursday that it operated on 70 percent of its national schedule in June, and capacity for the month was down 17.5 percent year over year. Gregory Anderson, Allegiant’s executive vice president, chief financial officer and principal accounting officer, said in a statement that the June data “exceeded our expectations.”

But Anderson added that the last two weeks of record-setting coronavirus cases nationwide, including in Florida, have “negatively impacted bookings and tempered expectations” as the company looks to the fall. They expect to reduce operating costs by nearly 17 percent in the next quarter.

“We remain focused on finding ways to eliminate costs and preserve cash,” Anderson stated.

Tampa International Airport reported last week that it expects to increase its daily flight load from 175 in June — down from 506 a year ago — to 280 in July.