Passenger trips through Oakland International Airport slumped during August, a disappointing setback after a brief improvement in travel numbers at the facility, the East Bay aviation hub reported Thursday.
An estimated 313,300 airline passengers traveled through Oakland airport in August, which was down about 28,500 from the 341,800 that arrived at or departed from the air travel complex in July, according to a report released by the airport.
“Encouraging June to July growth was dampened as cases of COVID-19 increased during August,” said Bryant Francis, director of aviation with the Port of Oakland.
The passenger trips in August were down 74 percent from August 2019, when 1.19 million travelers used Oakland International Airport.
The August passenger volume was down about 8 percent from the passenger trips in July.
Oakland airport officials blamed multiple factors for the disappointing decline.
“The postponement of the State of Hawaii’s planned pre-travel COVID-19 testing program resulted in a reduction in service to the Hawaiian Islands,” Francis said.
Southwest Airlines has continued to operate twice-daily service from Oakland to Honolulu, Oahu for those with an urgent, essential need to travel and enabling the shipment of essential cargo, the airport said.
Still, the decision by Southwest Airlines on the Hawaii flights wasn’t enough to offset a steep decline in trips between Oakland and the tropical islands.
“Just two of up to eight scheduled daily flights operated during what would have been a peak month” for Hawaii trips, Francis said.
