Yet another example has emerged of how the coronavirus and the subsequent travel restrictions have impacted aviation in barely 60 days' time.
After two record-breaking years of passenger traffic in the month of March, the USA Today network is reporting that Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport saw a 47 percent decline in the number of travelers in March of this year.
In total, 2 million fewer passengers used Sky Harbor last month compared to March 2019 - a shocking number when you consider that Arizona is one of the most popular spots in the country during the months of February and March, between its spring break destinations and Major League Baseball spring training.
But it's indicative of what's happening across the country. For example, Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport also lost half its traffic in March - and that was just four months after setting a monthly traffic record.
In many respects, Sky Harbor and countless others are in a similar position. March 2019 saw a record 4.5 million passengers arriving at and departing from Sky Harbor Airport. This broke the previous March record set in 2018, when 4.3 million passengers traveled. In March 2020, Sky Harbor had just 2.4 million passengers.
Need further information on how dire the situation is right now? Here you go.
Think of all the major destinations in the U.S. and busiest airports - New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Atlanta even, where Hartsfield is annually one of the busiest airports in the world, much less domestically. Want to know what the busiest airport in the world was last week?
Anchorage, Alaska.
According to Forbes, Ted Stevens Anchorage Airport beat out the traffic of normally busy hubs like LAX, Dubai and Hong Kong to become the world's busiest airport on Saturday, April 25. Granted, much of it was because of the need to move cargo, but this is the state of aviation these days.
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