Oakland airport passenger activity rises as post-COVID rebound widens
OAKLAND — Oakland International Airport experienced an upswing in passenger traffic during April, a sign that the East Bay aviation hub has extended its recovery from the economic malaise created by the coronavirus.
Nearly 938,400 air passengers traveled through Oakland Airport during April, which was an improvement on a month-to-month as well as a year-to-year basis, officials reported.
The biggest challenge facing the aviation complex: Oakland International Airport has yet to soar back to the levels it enjoyed in 2019, the final full year before the outbreak of the coronavirus.
The East Bay aviation hub isn’t alone among Bay Area airports in its struggle to reclaim its pre-coronavirus passenger activity levels.
San Jose International Airport and San Francisco International Airport continue to cruise at passenger activity levels that are far below the altitudes they had reached prior to the onset of the coronavirus during the first half of 2020.
Still, Oakland Airport is clearly on the mend, even it faces a difficult climb to reclaim its prior heights.
The totals for April are 2.2% higher than the number of passengers that Oakland International accommodated during the same month in April 2022.
The April passenger activity at Oakland Airport is 2.8% higher than the March 2023 figure. Plus, Oakland Airport in April posted its best month since November 2022.
Over the most recent one-year period that ended in April, Oakland International Airport accommodated 11.6 million passengers. That was 4.1% higher than the 11.15 million passengers handled by the East Bay airport in 2022.
Despite this improvement, the passenger levels during the recent 12 months were 13.3% below the total of 13.38 million passengers in the pre-COVID year of 2019.
The next major benchmark for Oakland Airport could be getting back to an average of 1 million passengers a month for a one-year period. During the 12 months that ended in April, the East Bay averaged 970,000 passengers a month.