San Jose airport trips gain summer altitude in hopeful economic sign

SAN JOSE — San Jose International Airport passenger activity has jumped during the summer travel months, but trips through the airport remain stuck far below their pre-coronavirus altitude.

Slightly fewer than 1.1 million passengers — 1,095,311 is the precise number — traveled through San Jose Airport in July, according to a new report.

That was 0.2% higher than the 1,093,129 passengers that San Jose Airport handled in June, city aviation officials reported.

The July figures also mark the fifth straight month that San Jose International reported higher passenger trips than the prior month. July also represented three straight months of more than 1 million passenger trips.

This suggests that people are using the South Bay aviation hub in greater numbers during the summer travel months.

The hopeful signs for San Jose International Airport might turn out to be more of a short-term upswing rather than a robust long-term trend.

Despite the definite improvement in recent months, the South Bay travel hub remains stuck far below its pre-COVID heights.

Over the 12 months that ended in July, San Jose Airport handled 11.89 million passengers.

That one-year total was a jaw-dropping 24% below the record-high 15.65 million passengers the airport accommodated in 2019, the final full year before the onset of the coronavirus and government-imposed business shutdowns to combat the spread of the deadly bug.

Ominously, the 11.89 million passenger totals during the year-old period ending in July also were 1.7% below the 12.1 million passengers San Jose Airport handled during calendar 2023.

This means the current pace for passenger trips might wind up short of last year’s totals.

In the wake of the coronavirus, business trips have faltered with the rise of tech services to accommodate remote meetings and distance employment.

The fading business travel activity has hurt markets that depend on such trips. The Bay Area is such a market, including the tech-oriented South Bay.

Some signs of optimism have appeared for San Jose Airport in recent months, however.

New flights by airlines could provide a lift to San Jose’s passenger activity.

Frontier Airlines during the summer resumed service at San Jose with daily nonstop flights that connect the South Bay with Denver, San Diego,  Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

“Connecting these destinations with nonstop services to San Jose brings the flexibility and choice that passengers have come to expect from SJC,” said San Jose director of aviation Mookie Patel.