Last month 377,775 passengers traveled through the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, compared to 347,268 passengers in December 2021. This represents an increase of 8.8%. Passengers traveling through the airport in calendar year 2022 totaled 3,847,606. This is a 21.6% increase over the previous calendar year record of 3,163,543 passengers.
Despite having 204 flight cancellations in December, partially due to Winter Storm Elliott, more passengers traveled through SRQ last month than any December in the history of the airport. The airport also shattered last year’s record of 3.1 million passengers by nearly 700,000 with over 3.8 million passengers using SRQ in 2022. In 2023, SRQ expects to continue our growth trend with record-breaking passenger numbers each month for the foreseeable future. Over the past 5 years, the airport has seen passenger traffic triple from under 1.2 million passengers in 2017 to over 3.8 million passengers in 2022. There continues to be great demand to live, work, and visit our boutique community, and its world-renowned beaches, partake in year-round outdoor activities offered, and experience arts and culture that you would normally only find in a larger city. This is why it is imperative the Airport Authority continues to expand the airport with additional aircraft gates, concessions, parking, and other amenities necessary to facilitate the increased demand impacting our community.