North Dakota’s eight commercial service airports posted a total of 90,979 airline passenger boardings during the recent month of January. This is a 24% increase from the 73,117 boardings that the state experienced in the same month in 2022.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, calendar year 2019 has been utilized as a baseline to gauge when a full recovery of airline boardings has been achieved to pre-pandemic levels.  The recent statewide numbers for the month of January are approximately 1.5% above 2019’s pre-pandemic passenger counts of 89,709.  This is the first month since the pandemic began where the passenger counts have been higher than the compared month in 2019.  If this trend continues, 2023 should be the year that the industry will achieve a full recovery in airline passenger numbers.

“Air service demand throughout North Dakota is a significantly stronger than one year ago and we are excited to see that the numbers are beginning to track above 2019’s pre-pandemic passenger counts.” stated Kyle Wanner, Executive Director of the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission.