North Dakota Airline Travel Numbers Have Declined
After an overall drop in airline travel over the past year throughout the country, it's no surprise that North Dakota saw airline passengers number decline last month.
In October, the number of airline passengers in the four largest city airports in North Dakota showed declines. Bismarck's showed the biggest drop down 11 percent. Fargo is down 3 percent, Minot dropped 5 percent, and Grand Forks had a drop of 7 percent.
The overall boardings in at North Dakota's eight commercial service airports is down 5 percent overall from a year ago. And overall, U.S. airline profits have dropped 20 percent since the start of 2017.
However, the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday weekend is forecast to be the busiest in over a decade. According to Airlines for America, 28.5 million passengers are expected to fly over the course of the 12-day Thanksgiving air-travel period. Those numbers are a 3.2 percent increase over the same holiday period in 2016.
A4A hopes the holiday weekend will be just the boost needed to overcome their overall drop in numbers since the start of 2017.