Bellingham airport gets big boost in activity with the arrival of Southwest
Southwest Airlines provided a big boost to activity at Bellingham International Airport in its first few weeks of operation.
The airline, which began daily direct service to Oakland and Las Vegas on Sunday, Nov. 7, nearly pushed Bellingham’s passenger numbers back to pre-pandemic levels for the month. According to data collected by the Port of Bellingham, 20,456 people flew out of the airport in November, just shy of the November 2019 total of 24,636. Last month’s total was a big jump over November 2020, when the total was 6,605.
Even though border restrictions and the discovery of the omicron COVID-19 variant probably put a damper on traveling, it was a good start for the airline, said Sunil Harman, aviation director for the port. He noted that Bellingham is projected to beat FAA forecasts for 2021 airport activity.
While vaccinated Canadians are allowed to come into the U.S., longer trips like flying out of the Bellingham airport require a negative test for COVID-19 to return to Canada. Before the pandemic, Canadians were a big part of overall traffic at the Bellingham airport.
So far this year 139,278 people have flown out of the Bellingham airport, compared to 94,600 for the same period in 2020. The peak total year for the airport was in 2013, when nearly 600,000 people flew out of Bellingham.
Along with Southwest’s daily flights, Alaska Airlines flies daily to Seattle, while Allegiant offers nonstop service to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Oakland, Palm Springs and San Diego, and Phoenix (Mesa).
