Entering the busy holiday season and final month of 2015, Glacier Park International Airport is poised to break another record for passengers this year, according to airport officials.
A total of 14,016 people boarded planes in Kalispell’s in November, a 12.4 percent increase over last year and a new record for the month. The monthly total was 27,703 passengers, a 10.5 percent increase over last year.
Year-to-date ridership — 437,022 people — is up 3.8 percent over last year, and GPIA has set passenger records in nine of the 11 months, according to officials. This year is on pace to set a new annual ridership record for the fourth year in a row.
“It is very encouraging to see passenger number growth year over year, and to see economic recovery continue to manifest itself in travel,” GPIA Airport Director Cindi Martin stated. “We believe we are seeing both tourism and business travel improvements as evidenced by the fact that nearly every month in 2015 has seen a record number of travelers passing through the airport.”
Martin said the Flathead Valley’s so-called shoulder seasons appear to be shrinking in terms of more visitors. The region’s largest attraction, Glacier National Park, also enjoyed a banner year for visitation, breaking the annual record last month with 2.35 million visitors through November. It was the second year in a row that the national park broke annual visitation records.
As ski season takes off amid the holidays, Martin said December would continue to be a busy month at GPIA, with winter seasonal flights beginning this weekend. Alongside the regular year-round daily flights, the airport is gaining non-stop flights to Los Angeles from Dec. 19 to Jan. 3, except Dec. 24-25, and direct flights to Chicago on Saturdays from Dec. 19 to April 4.
This year’s holiday season typically takes off in mid-December, and this year more than 38.1 million passengers are projected to fly on U.S. airlines over the next few weeks.
Travelers are encouraged to plan ahead and arrive well before their flights take off as flights are projected to be near capacity, Martin said.
Montana’s largest airports are enjoying busier years in 2015. In Bozeman, ridership is up 5.4 percent with 933,180 passengers. Billings’ ridership is up 1.1 percent with 774,713 passengers. Missoula’s ridership has jumped 4.2 percent this year with 635,981 passengers. Helena has seen a 1.8 percent increase with 182,253.
Great Falls has experienced a 3 percent decline with 342,427 passengers.
GPIA is served by Allegiant, Alaska, Delta and United with year-round service to Denver, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and Seattle with additional season service to Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland/San Francisco and Portland.