Air travel up at SWF International
Passenger traffic more than 7 percent higher than last year
SPECIAL TO FLORIDA WEEKLY

During the month of September, over 387,000 passengers traveled through Southwest Florida International Airport, an increase of 5.2 percent compared to September 2006. Year-to-date, passenger traffic is up 7.5 percent over the same period last year.

"More than 6.1 million passengers have used our airport this year," said Robert M. Ball, executive director of the Lee County Port Authority. "We are particularly pleased that September, historically a slow month for travel, was no exception to record-breaking passenger traffic at Southwest Florida International Airport."

The traffic leader for the month of Sep- tember was Delta with 59,176 passengers traveling to and from Fort Myers. Rounding out the top five airlines were Southwest (49,828), Air Tran (39,170), JetBlue (37,298) and US Airways (34,444).

At Southwest Florida International Airport, there were 5,179 aircraft movements (takeoffs and landings) recorded, an increase of 2.3 percent over September 2006. Page Field General Aviation Airport saw 5,286 movements. In addition, nearly 3 million pounds of air freight moved through both airports in September 2007.

Southwest Florida International Airport served more than 7.6 million passengers in 2006 and is one of the top 50 busiest U.S. airports. For more information, log onto www.flylcpa.com