International travel helps boost SLC airport to passenger record

Passenger traffic at Salt Lake City International Airport has taken off, to the tune of a new fiscal-year record.

Airport officials recently announced that its most recent July-through-June fiscal year saw the number of passengers break a record, with 26,241,401 people flying in and out of the airport. That tops the 26,203,976 using the airport in fiscal 2019.

The airport also is expecting to set a calendar-year record in 2023. The existing top tally is 26,808,014 set in 2019.

International travel has provided an unexpected boost in the{mprestriction ids="1,3"} passenger numbers. International travelers numbered 1,085,640 in fiscal 2019 but rose 22 percent to reach 1,327,241 in fiscal 2023.

Airport officials attributed that jump to pent-up demand from passengers wanting to fly to Europe following the COVID-19 pandemic. Delta responded by increasing nonstop service between Salt Lake City and London from seasonal to annually, and Eurowings Discover entered the Salt Lake market with seasonal nonstop service to Frankfurt, Germany, in May 2022.

“We are on track to a full recovery from the pandemic,” said Bill Wyatt, executive director of the Salt Lake City Department of Airports. “At the height of the pandemic a couple of years ago, it didn’t seem possible. To see domestic travel rebound so quickly is remarkable, but to see international travel up by double digits is astounding.”

The passenger increases have occurred in the midst of a massive $5.1 billion reconstruction project at the airport. The previous airport was built to serve 10 million passengers but was accommodating nearly three times that amount in 2019. It closed in the fall of 2020 to make way to the “New SLC Airport,” designed to accommodate 34 million passengers at the full build-out of Phase 4, which is anticipated to open in late 2026.

Remaining gates of Phase 2 will begin operating Oct. 31. Phase 3 opens in the fall of 2024 with five gates, followed by four gates in fall 2025.

The 22nd-busiest airport in North America and 60th-busiest in the world, Salt Lake City International has more than 315 departures daily to more than 90 nonstop destinations.{/mprestriction}