A few months before opening a much-anticipated passenger terminal, New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport announced Monday that about 13.1 million passengers traveled through the facility in 2018, setting a record for the city and marking eight-straight years of growth at the airport, officials said.
Total passengers for the airport in 2017 finished at about 12 million and surpassed the previous record of about 11.1 million in 2017 and 10.6 million in 2015.
Since 2010, passenger totals are up 60 percent, the airport touted in a news release.
"The record-breaking number of passengers moving through our airport is a testament to the strength of New Orleans’ economy,” said New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said. "The new terminal complex opening in May will help us support and sustain this phenomenal growth.”
Can't see video below? Click here.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics hasn't released 2018 figures for all U.S. airports. In 2017, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest in the country, served 50.2 million passengers. U.S. airlines carried a record 849.3 million in 2017, about a three percent increase from 2016.
A few 2018 highlights New Orleans airport officials identified:
- Several new flights were announced including four to new destinations: Louisville; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Sacramento; and San Jose.
- A new airline, Sun Country Airlines, was added with nonstop service to Minneapolis and Nashville.
- The airport saw an average of 159 flights per day, which is nine more than its 2017 average.
The airport said several new routes, both international and domestic, are slated for 2019:
February 2019
- Alaska Airlines adds a new daily departure to Seattle.
- Allegiant launches seasonal service to Louisville, Missouri — a new destination from New Orleans.
- Spirit Airlines begins daily flights to Austin and Denver.
May 2019
- Vacation Express begins seasonal flights to Montego Bay, Jamaica.
- Spirit Airlines starts seasonal, twice-weekly flights to Philadelphia and daily, nonstop service to Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
June 2019
- Delta Air Lines begins nonstop weekend service to Raleigh-Durham.
By any measure, the terminal project in New Orleans is massive.
The cost: $1.3 billion. The timeline: six years. The context: New Orleans is the first major American city in a decade to replace its airport terminal. The last was Indianapolis in 2008.
Once complete, the project will likely be the largest one that metro New Orleans has seen since the construction of the Superdome nearly 50 years earlier.
But as the terminal nears takeoff, some blemishes also have become more apparent.
By any measure, the Louis Armstrong International Airport project in New Orleans is massive.
The total cost is about twice the $650 million estimate in 2013.
The terminal is now scheduled to open a year after the original date. The latest delay was caused by the need to build a new sewage pipe for the terminal after the one that was built could no longer operate because of shifting soils.
And although the new terminal is about three-quarters of a mile closer to Interstate 10, drivers will likely encounter traffic tie-ups, possibly significant ones, getting there via Loyola Drive in Kenner. That’s because the planned flyovers from the interstate won’t be ready until at least 2023 — in part because of planning.
Parking will likely be an issue, too. The new long-term parking lot won’t be ready when the new terminal opens. For the first couple of months, departing passengers who want to use cheaper long-term parking will have to park in a lot by the existing terminal and take a shuttle to the new one. Arriving passengers who want to rent a vehicle will have to take a shuttle bus back to the existing rental car facility next to the current terminal.
The move to the new terminal is scheduled to occur on May 15, after the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival — a big tourist draw — ends on May 6. Airport officials had been planning to open the new terminal on Feb. 20, before the Carnival season.
