December 12, 2023
THOM CARROLL/for PhillyVoice
Philadelphia International Airport expects nearly 1.1 million travelers to pass through its terminals during the upcoming holiday travel season, airport officials said Tuesday.
Traveling through Philadelphia International Airport this holiday season may feel a bit like it did before the COVID-19 pandemic.
PHL officials expect nearly 1.1 million passengers to travel through the airport’s terminals between Dec. 21 and Jan. 3, the airport said in a release. That would be a 13.8% increase in travelers compared to the same period last year.
The predicted passenger volume would be about 5% lower than what PHL saw in 2019, when the airport clocked about 1.15 million passengers during the two weeks of historically intense holiday travel. But the anticipated number of passengers would be the highest the airport has seen during the winter holidays since the pandemic crippled travel and business activity around the globe in early 2020.
PHL's shift back to normal may be gradual, but it’s getting there. This year’s Thanksgiving holiday travel period — which AAA predicted to be the nation’s most travel-heavy Thanksgiving since 2019 — was indeed the busiest one at PHL in the last three years, according to TSA data.
Airport officials use data about the number of seats available on flights to and from Philadelphia to calculate the airport’s predicted travel volume, a PHL spokesperson said. The actual number of passengers will not be calculated until early 2024.
Earlier this year, Philadelphia International Airport was ranked the worst large airport in North America in terms of customer satisfaction, according to a J.D. Power analysis. That's despite PHL boasting some of the fastest airport security lines in the country, with travelers taking an average of nine minutes to get through TSA security checkpoints.
Presumably, none of the above data includes the occasional raccoon that may find its way into the airport's baggage claim.
