It’s been a few years coming, but Philadelphia International Airport is reporting that passenger numbers are solid, showing that air travel in and out of Philadelphia has fully recovered to pre-pandemic days.
“In the 2024 calendar year, we had over 30 million passengers fly into or out of PHL, and that was almost a 10 percent increase from the previous year,” said Heather Redfern, the airport’s public affairs manager.
That 30 million benchmark is the first time since 2019 that the airport had those numbers, writes Tom MacDonald for Philadelphia Business Journal.
PHL expects to see another increase in traffic for 2025 and a bigger jump in 2026, thanks to the World Cup and other major events in Philadelphia.
“Anything like this shows our partners whether it be our concessionaires, with Marketplace PHL, with the airlines, anybody that wants to do business at PHL, it shows them people are choosing PHL as their airport of choice,” Redfern said.
A WWE Wrestlemania event in early April and new international flights from American Airlines contributed to the increase in travelers.
American added Copenhagen, Naples and Nice, France to its routes.
More passengers help attract more airlines and better vendors, Redfern said.
Find out about other developments that are expected to trigger further passenger increases at WHYY.
