Record Month, Record Summer Passenger Totals has NCWV Airport Officials Pleased, Looking to Expand
By Jeff Toquinto on September 15, 2021
North Central West Virginia Airport Director Rick Rock has said dozens of times over the years the best way to land new or additional flights from Bridgeport is to fly out of the facility. If that is the case, then Rock has plenty of ammunition to make things happen in the future.
Although the NCWV Airport did not post a record number of passengers for August as it did for July, it once again posted a huge number. And that number already has allowed the airport to surpass the 2020 total with four months to go.
“We were just shy of 4,000 enplanements in August,” said Rock. “It was another solid month.”
The airport had 3,948 passengers. That brings them to 21,532 for the year. Although still well off of 2019’s non-COVID record year of 42,829 enplanements, the numbers are impressive considering the summer flights to both Myrtle Beach and Destin ended August 15.
The number is also above the 2019 pre-COVID number for August of 3,018. It is well above the 1,300 in 2020.
“That is 31 percent higher than last year and we’re happy to see it. When you consider we’re still, as an industry, in the recovery phase from the pandemic that is still in play, it’s impressive,” Rock said. “This is the strongest summer we’ve ever had.
“People put our faith in us this summer and the numbers show it; through August,” Rock continued. “Nearly 4,000 is not too bad for coming off a record month.”
The airport posted 6,355 enplanements in July. Rock told members of the Benedum Airport Authority – the airport’s governing body – during last month’s meeting it was the highest month in the airport’s history. Even with that number, the pandemic stopped it from being higher.
“We had a few cancellations for different reasons, but we actually had over 7,000 seats booked for the month,” said Rock during the meeting. It is likely some of those reasons were COVID concerns.
Rock said, to date, there have been no calls from the local health department concerning contact tracing for possible transmission of COVID-19 on any flight from the NCWV Airport. Rock said that efforts to keep flights safe will continue.
“What we did on the safety front, if we started this over, we would do it again and we’ll continue to do it because it’s been successful,” said Rock. “We did have some employees with COVID, but it did not appear to be work related.
“We’ll continue to keep the terminal clean, be mindful of social distancing, mask up, and continue situational awareness of what is taking place,” said Rock. “For this busy of a summer with multiple flights, the staff was able to maintain the health protocols by keeping everything clean. I can’t say enough about the staff that allows the public to trust us, and the numbers show they do.”
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