Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport have surpassed pre-COVID passenger levels on a sustained basis, while Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport still has ground to make up.
For the most recently reported data – November 2023 – Reagan National’s 12-month passenger count was 6.8 percent above the 12-month period ending in November 2019, while Dulles was up 1.3 percent and BWI was down 3.8 percent.
That’s according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, reporting an analysis from Diio FMdi Market Intelligence and based on data recorded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The report covers the nation’s 25 busiest airports by O&D (origin and destination) passengers. For the 25 airports as a whole, the passenger count for the 12 months ending in November 2023 was down 0.7 percent from the same period ending in November 2019.
Of the 25 airports, Reagan National’s performance ranked seventh, Dulles’s 12th and BWI’s 17th.
The biggest gainers were Miami International (up 15.7%), Orlando International (+13.5%) and Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas (+12.6%). At the other end of the scale were Detroit Metropolitan Airport (down 15.3%), Los Angeles International Airport (-14.9%) and Philadelphia International Airport (-14.6%).
Of the 25 airports, five saw double-digit increases and six recorded double-digit declines between the two reporting periods.
For the 12-month periods that ended in November 2022 and November 2023, the positions were shuffled: Dulles ranked second among the 25 airports with a year-over-year growth rate of 18.5 percent, behind only San Francisco International (+20.1%), while BWI was sixth at 14.5 percent and Reagan National, which was 23rd at 7.2 percent. All 25 airports posted increases, including 19 with double-digit boosts.
