Chattanooga Airport passenger traffic, after soaring earlier this summer from pandemic lows, has leveled off, officials said Monday.
August boardings were down slightly from July, even though traffic last month rose 131% from August 2020, airport officials said.
Terry Hart, the airport's chief executive, told the Airport Authority panel that boardings likely will finish the year at about 375,000 passengers. That number is up sharply from 225,000 passenger boardings the airport posted in the coronavirus-stricken 2020.
But 2021 would still sharply trail 2019, when the airport boarded more than 554,000 travelers.
Passenger boardings plunged 59.3% in 2020 over the prior year, airport officials said. Not since 1983 in the aftermath of airline deregulation had passenger levels stalled to such a low when boardings that year were 212,955, figures show.
"The Delta variant had somewhat of an impact," Hart said about August traffic.
Airlines are starting to see future bookings slow, he said, and the carriers are cutting seat capacity.
"I believe that will be the case for the next several months," Hart said.
But the airport CEO said Chattanooga has returned to flying to all its hubs except LaGuardia Airport in New York City. He said Delta Air Lines has indicated those nonstop Chattanooga-New York flights will resume, but they'll have to wait until business travel returns.
Still, Hart said he expects to see fares generally start to fall during the rest of 2021 as airlines try to stimulate more traffic.
He said Chattanooga Airport officials will talk to Allegiant Air about potentially expanding its service out of Lovell Field. Hart said he sees potential nonstop service from Chattanooga to Fort Lauderdale and to Las Vegas on Allegiant, which now flies nonstops from the Scenic City to Orlando and Tampa-St. Petersburg.
He said there's an opportunity to attract more fliers from the North Atlanta suburbs to Chattanooga since Allegiant doesn't fly out of Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Meanwhile, airport officials said they're moving ahead with the drawing of plans for a possible future expansion of the Chattanooga passenger terminal.
Dan Jacobson, the Airport Authority's chairman, said he'd like to see an early 2022 construction start on what would be the biggest expansion to the passenger terminal in more than three decades.
The possible $28 million project's first phase would add 26,000 square feet and renovate up to 14,000 square feet. Three new gates for passenger loading onto aircraft would be added in phase one to the five existing gates.
Plans call for adding a third security checkpoint for passengers entering the concourse as well as a separate lane for pre-check fliers. In the concourse past the checkpoint, a new restaurant, updated restrooms, a cafe and gift shop are eyed, officials said.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.