San Jose leaders are cautiously optimistic that a surge in air travel over the Thanksgiving holiday is a sign that the local airline industry — and by extension, the economy — is recovering from COVID-19.
Mineta San Jose International Airport predicts about 438,000 passengers will pass through its doors over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. According to airport data, 73,862 passengers passed through the South Bay air hub from November 18-21, an increase of nearly 23% compared to the same period in 2021.
Approximately 300,000 travelers passed through the airport last Thanksgiving.
“The (local) economy benefits when more people travel into the city,” David Cohen, a council member and San Jose airport council liaison, told the San José Spotlight. “It’s great to see people traveling more on vacation and using the San Jose airport once again.”
The influx of air traffic could lead to increased foot traffic in San Jose, a good sign for toddlers businesses, Cohen said. This is especially important as the city continues to reel from an economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
This year’s increase could be the start of a trend. Last holiday season also saw an increase in airport passengers despite the spread of the omicron variant, and travelers surged towards the airport through July 4 this year.
Passenger numbers this year are up 221% compared to 2020, when COVID-19 shutdowns halted flights across the globe and safety precautions like mask mandates and reduced passenger loads discouraged customers from flying. As a result, many airlines filed for bankruptcy, and economists predict it could take years for the industry to recover — if it recovers at all.
“Everyone in aviation was worried and didn’t know what was going to happen,” airport spokeswoman Ana State told the San José Spotlight. “All the restrictions that were put in place were not helping the industry at all.”
While the increase in passengers is a good sign for the recovering industry, it also shows that aviation has not fully returned to pre-pandemic levels. This year’s Thanksgiving passenger numbers are still down nearly 21% compared to 2019.
One reason may be stubborn delay in business trips. Because San Jose is not a recreational tourism hot spot, the airport relies on Silicon Valley’s once-booming tech industry to bring passengers to the airport, said Dan Connolly, chairman of the San Jose Airport Commission.
The increase in passenger traffic this year has come mainly from a return to leisure travel. That’s true across the industry as companies continue to rely on remote work, Connolly said.
“We have to be realistic about the fact that companies learned how to do business differently during COVID,” Connolly told the San José Spotlight. “A lot of companies realized, ‘Maybe I don’t have to fly people all over the country; we can just have a Zoom meeting.’”
The tech sector has also seen massive job cuts in recent weeks as Meta, Twitter and PayPal laid off tens of thousands of workers. At the same time, the cost of living in Silicon Valley continues to rise, driving up business costs and making it harder to retain local workers.
Connolly is concerned that these factors combined could cause business traffic to take another nosedive at Mineta San Jose International Airport in the coming months.
“When you have to lay off, (companies) worry about the bottom line, so your business travel will decrease because of that,” he said. “We’ll have to see in a few years whether things turn around completely or not.”
Contact Brian Howey at [email protected] or @SteelandBallast on Twitter.
