About 6.8 million passengers traveled through Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport in 2016, up 3.2 percent from 2015.
In December, 512,677 passengers passed through MKE, up 2 percent year-over-year.
Mitchell Airport attributed the increases to new direct flights added during the year. Frontier Airlines added a nonstop route to Orlando in January, Dallas in April, Philadelphia in June and Phoenix in December. Southwest Airlines added a direct flight to San Diego in June.
However, passenger traffic at Mitchell is still down 31.3 percent from its peak of 9.85 million passengers in 2010 (see chart below).
“This increase in passengers (in 2016) is due to new nonstop routes launched from MKE in 2016 and continued marketing of our routes to travelers across Wisconsin and northern Illinois,” said Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele. “The convenience, efficiency and competitive fares offered by MKE are helping us create more demand for additional new flights at Mitchell Airport. I encourage everyone to keep choosing our local airport for their travel needs. It’s the best way for us to get even more flights.”
The airport now has direct routes to 39 U.S. cities and 160 international destinations. Airlines operating out of Mitchell are Air Canada, Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, Norwegian (Apple/Funjet Vacations), OneJet, Southwest, United and Volaris.
This year, Volaris is adding a route to Guadalajara, Mexico in March, Delta is adding a nonstop to Seattle in March and Alaska is adding a direct route to Portland in June, all of which are expected to boost passenger traffic again in 2017.
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