PHOENIX — Phoenix city officials said Monday was the biggest travel day in the history of Sky Harbor. They estimate around 200,000 passengers passed through the gates.
Mayor Kate Gallego held a press conference with the CEO of Valley Metro and the director of aviation services at Sky Harbor where she lauded the work of employees handling the massive volumes of traffic.
“We were the busiest airport in the country,” she said. “U.S. airports are the busiest in the world, so we believe we were the busiest airport for outbound traffic in the world on Monday.”
If estimates from city officials are correct, around 10% of all passenger traffic in the country passed through Sky Harbor on Monday based on an extrapolation of TSA daily check-in numbers.
The flight tracking site FlightRadar24 showed inbound flights to Sky Harbor were up 40% on Monday compared to the average of 908 inbound flights. Officials at the press conference confirmed that Sky Harbor handled over 1,700 inbound and outbound flights on Monday.
Of the approximately 200,000 passengers, 83,000 were outbound, double the typical daily number. This meant 47,000 checked bags — the most ever. Sales of food and beverages at the airport are also estimated to be the highest on record.
Ground transportation at Sky Harbor saw massive numbers as well. Officials said 1,300 taxis and 23,000 rideshare vehicles made the trip to and from the airport. With the completion of the expansion to the rental car lot, Phoenix Sky Train ridership increased 230%. There were nearly 15,000 rental cars either being dropped off or returned on Monday.
These are preliminary numbers; Sky Harbor is set to release official passenger statistics in the coming months.
