Sonoma County airport on track to end 2023 matching or surpassing its record 600,000-plus passenger count last year

Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport is on track to finish 2023 having matched, or possibly exceeding, the nearly 615,000 passengers served last year, airport officials said Sept. 13.

“We're going to be close,” said Airport Manager Jon Stout.

That year-end projection even takes into account American Airlines’ scheduled pause of its Dallas flight starting Dec. 4, which has been previously reported.

Alaska Airlines is expected to take the airport over the finish line.

“They’re the ones with the biggest growth of our partners,” which includes Avelo Airlines, Stout said.

Overall, there have been fewer flights this year from the Sonoma County airport, and that includes Alaska Airlines, Stout said. But when the air carrier last year swapped out its smaller jet aircraft for larger Boeing 737 planes, that allowed each flight to accommodate more passengers.

Airport officials on Sept. 13 also released passenger figures for August, which show 57,560 people traveled through the Santa Rosa facility, up 1.8% from a year earlier. In July, 55,025 passengers traveled through the airport.

For the first eight months of the year, the county facility’s three commercial carriers have collectively flown 408,803 passengers, up 2.5% from August 2022. That number through July 2023 was 351,243 passengers.

Alaska Airlines alone flew 39,972 passengers through the Sonoma County airport last month, up 15.2% from a year prior. Its load factor — the measure of how full airplanes are on average — was 80%. The Seattle-based Alaska Airlines flew 38,061 passengers through the airport in July.

Avelo Airlines in August flew 7,881 passengers through the regional airport, down 15.9% from August 2022. Burbank-based Avelo’s load factor was 81%. In July, the air carrier flew 9,505 passengers through the airport.

As previously reported, Avelo on Sept. 7 doubled its flights to Las Vegas, and on Nov. 3 will bring back its seasonal service to Palm Springs. The carrier currently services the Burbank, Las Vegas and Bend, Oregon, markets, the latter having launched June 23. When Avelo debuted the central Oregon flight, it didn’t state whether service would be seasonal or year-round.

The answer may become clear at the end of October, when the Department of Transportation releases data that shows market performance since June, Stout said. The federal agency, he added, releases its data every month for the three months’ prior, but there’s a lag.

Meanwhile, American Airlines flew 9,707 passengers through the regional facility last month, down 8.7% from a year earlier. Its load factor was 81%. American, based out of Fort Worth, Texas, in July flew 8,359 passengers through the facility.