Airports continue to break records
March 6, 2012, 05:17 pm
Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans recently announced it increased its total passenger volume 4.2 percent to 8,546,980 between 2010 and 2011. The passenger volume marked the highest number of travelers through the airport since Hurricane Katrina hit, and it surpassed the Federal Aviation Administration's national projection of 3 percent growth for last year.
In 2000, Armstrong International set an all-time record of 9.9 million passengers, and those numbers remained consistent through 2004 until Katrina struck. After the hurricane, volume dropped to 7.8 million in 2005. The airport started to offer more nonstop flight service in 2010, helping boost its passenger numbers. In 2011 Southwest Airlines, for example, carried 32 percent of all the airport's passengers, up from 30.8 percent in 2010. Delta Airlines came in second for passenger volume at Armstrong, carrying 22 percent of its passengers traveling through the airport, The Times-Picayune reported.
"As Armstrong International continues to exceed the national average for growth projections, it is a clear sign of the strength of a greater New Orleans metropolitan area to draw visitors for business and pleasure and the confidence of the airlines in our market," Iftikhar Ahmad, Armstrong's director of aviation, told the Times.
Also reporting success and growth, Connecticut's Bradley Airport recently deployed a new alert system to prevent passengers from being stranded at the airport due to a delayed flight. The new digital system informs airlines of ground delays, prompting officials at the airport to issue a notice to airmen through the FAA's national system. Bradley is now one of 55 airports in the United States to use the new digital system, The Associated Press reported.
The goal of the system is to relieve stress and inconvenience associated with flight delays. In June 2010, for example, storms diverted a flight from London to Newark to the Windsor Locks, Connecticut, airport. Passengers on the plane were stuck for several hours in the plane without any food until it was cleared for takeoff. Many international flights were unexpectedly grounded at Bradley Airport during a snowstorm last October, which also stranded passengers at the facility, the AP reported.
As a result of these incidents, federal agencies and the Connecticut Department of Transportation decided to adopt the notification system to help prepare flight crew, passengers and airport officials for potential groundings and delays so accommodations can be made for stranded passengers. With the new system, Bradley Airport is able to send information directly to airlines through the FAA technology without awaiting approval from federal aviation officials first, the AP reported.
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