Air travel surpasses pre-pandemic levels at NY airports, as transit continues to lag
Port Authority airports, including John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport in Queens, Stewart International Airport in Hudson Valley, and Newark Liberty International Airport and Teterboro in New Jersey, handled 11 million passengers in November. . Airport in November 2019.
According to the agency, this year’s Thanksgiving trip was 8% higher than seen during the same holiday season in 2019 and was the last Thanksgiving before COVID. Port Authority officials have partially acknowledged that major renovation projects have either been completed or are in the pipeline at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark as they will enhance air travel in the region.
Port Authority Chairman Kevin O’Toole said in a statement: “After more than two years of a global pandemic, we’re home and we’re very pleased to see our airports at pre-pandemic levels after a wave of wanderlust. “Throughout this year, we’ve seen a steady return of airport passengers and the pleasant surprise on their faces as they see the brand new world-class aviation facility awaiting them. Holidays with People People Love We look forward to welcoming millions more passengers in the coming weeks as we celebrate.”
Like air travel, car travel is essentially back to pre-pandemic levels. The Port Authority reported on Thursday that 10 million vehicles moved eastward through his four bridges and he two tunnels in November. Traveling at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority railroad crossings is also back to what it was before the Times.
The same cannot be said for mass transportation. Both the MTA and the airline industry received generous federal bailouts worth billions of dollars during the pandemic, but passenger numbers plummeted during the lockdowns, leaving passenger numbers at pre-pandemic levels. It’s stagnant at about 60%. bus. MTA executives are blaming the rise of telecommuting.
PATH is even worse. His November passenger numbers for the Manhattan-New Jersey system, the Port Authority reported Thursday, were just 59% of the same month in 2019, a pandemic-era record.
Sluggish passenger numbers have pushed the MTA to the edge of a ‘fiscal cliff’, forcing it to enact an austerity budget with draconian cost-cutting measures and pursue the first toll hike since 2015. I’m here. Next year it will be $2.90 and 2025 will be $3.05, but the final fare will be determined by an internal MTA working group.
Meanwhile, airfares, which are not subject to government price controls or democratic accountability like public transit, have risen 36% over the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is despite the fact that her $50 billion bailout for the airline was more than triple his $15 billion federal COVID aid for the MTA. Even though, historically, the subway alone has transported more people on any given weekday than the entire US airline industry.