OAKLAND — The coronavirus economic fallout has battered Oakland International Airport, which suffered a steep plunge in air travel during March, aviation officials said.
Oakland International Airport reported that roughly 452,000 passengers used the East Bay aviation hub during March, a nose-dive from the 1.1 million who traveled through the airport in March 2019.
Passenger volumes tumbled 58.8 percent in March compared to the same month the year before, Oakland International Airport reported.
Concerns over the spread of the coronavirus have prompted governments worldwide to impose restrictions on air travel, which in turn have forced airlines to cancel a steadily mounting number of flights.
March’s passenger volumes fell 46.7 percent compared with the 846,000 who used Oakland International Airport in February of this year.
For the 12 months that ended on March 31, 12.65 million people traveled through Oakland airport. That was down 7.1 percent from the 13.61 million passengers transiting through the East Bay aviation center during the one-year period that ended in March 2019.
The air travel woes in the Bay Area continued on Friday with no apparent letup. On Friday, airlines canceled 64 flights serving Oakland International Airport, according to the Flight Aware tracking site.
Southwest Airlines canceled 50 Oakland airport flights or 37 percent of its schedule for Friday. Volaris and Allegiant Air called all of their Oakland flights. SkyWest canceled half of its Oakland service for the day.
