Southwest Florida International Airport saw its passenger count dip 9 percent year-over-year in April.
But Lee County Port Authority isn’t sweating it.
The 939,957-passenger total meant it was the second-busiest April on record at the airport, which opened 35 years ago this month.
Also, the first three months of the year were record-breakers.
All told, nearly 4.4 million passengers passed through the airport in the first four months of 2018.
That’s nearly half of the record 8.8 million-plus passengers served in all of 2017.
“We are pushing the numbers. It’s good news,” said airport spokeswoman Victoria Moreland.
A relatively early observance of Easter on April 1 hurt passenger totals for that month, Moreland said.
With the high season for Florida tourism waning after the Easter holiday, low-cost carriers Spirit and Southwest pulled their extra air service.
And, the airport's nonstop service to Germany – lost last October after Air Berlin went bust – didn’t resume until this month when EuroWings launched flights here.
April's passenger total stayed robust, Moreland said, because mainline carriers such as American, Delta, JetBlue and United, served more passengers this April than in April the year prior.
Canadian carriers Air Canada and WestJet also had robust passenger counts locally.
The strongest April to date came last year, when the airport served 1,032,783 passengers.
More April statistics from Lee County Port Authority:
Delta Air Lines was the busiest carrier locally with 194,114 passengers, followed by Southwest Airlines (182,003), American (135,119), JetBlue (130,437) and United (105,034).
The international airport had 8,049 takeoffs and landings, which was nearly 14 percent fewer year-over-year.
It handled nearly 2.6 million pounds of air freight, up 1.9 percent.
The general aviation airport – Page Field – had just over 8,000 takeoffs and landings. That was more than 18 percent fewer year-over-year.
The decline came as no surprise, and followed a bigger drop year-over-year in March. It’s a temporary consequence of a planned rehabilitation of the two runways there, Moreland said.
The crosswind runway – the shorter of the two at Page – is closed for rehab. This has prompted some of the smaller aircraft to stay away.
Work on this runway should finish by the end of August.