One of America’s fastest growing airports continues to reach new milestones.
On Monday, officials for the Ontario International Airport announced an 11.6% increase in passenger volume during the first nine months of 2023.
That includes a 7.6% increase in September 2023 from the previous year. Last month, Ontario saw more than 550,000 passengers — an increase of nearly 40,000 travelers in September 2022.
The month of September also saw a 151% increase in international travel compared to the previous September.
In all, nearly 4.7 million passengers opted to fly from the Inland Empire gateway between January and the end of September. Domestic fliers made up 4.4 million, while international travelers made up the rest — but international travel is up more than 116% from 2022, likely spurred by growing desires and high-demand for travel experiences following months of pandemic lockdowns and restrictions across the globe.
| Passenger Totals | Sep. 2023 | Sep. 2022 | Change | YTD 2023 | YTD 2022 | Change |
| Domestic | 520,037 | 502,540 | 3.48% | 4,400,377 | 4,072,713 | 8.0% |
| International | 36,176 | 14,405 | 151.14% | 296,121 | 136,803 | 116.5% |
| Total | 556,213 | 516,945 | 7.6% | 4,696,498 | 4,209,516 | 11.6% |
Atif Elkadi, Ontario International Airport Authority CEO, described the passenger volumes as “robust” and called the airport the “envy” of airport operators across the region.
“The steady increases in passenger volume and customer satisfaction surveys show what many of us already knew – Ontario International is California’s favorite airport,” Elkadi said.
While passenger traffic continues to climb, cargo traffic also continued to decrease, airport officials said, pointing the decline on lower global shipping volume across the country.
Those trends are consistent with numbers released by the airport back in March.
Ontario International Airport is located about 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the Inland Empire. It offers nonstop service to nearly two dozen airports in the U.S., Mexico, Central America and Taiwan.