Airport shows slow gain in traffic after storm

Just over 6.2 million passengers used the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport last year n only 64 percent of the traffic recorded before Hurricane Katrina n but airport officials expect a post-storm recovery to continue.

The figure, reported by the airport Thursday, is 80 percent of 7.8 million passengers that used the airport in 2005, a year in which traffic was largely cut off after Katrina’s strike in late August.

The airport hosted 9.8 million passengers in 2004 and, before Katrina, airport officials had expected to the figure to hit 10 million in 2005.

The airport’s interim director of aviation, Sean Hunter, said he expects air service to continue growing. Armstrong currently has 110 flights n compared with 162 before the storm.

Earlier this week, Houston-based ExpressJet Airlines said it would begin nonstop flights this summer between New Orleans and Kansas City, Mo.; Birmingham, Ala.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and the Texas cities of Austin and San Antonio.

“While the passenger numbers are down from years past, Armstrong International Airport has shown tremendous growth as the region continues to recover from Hurricane Katrina,” Hunter said in a statement.

Since Katrina, Continental Airlines has seen a big jump in passenger volume, capturing 17 percent of the fliers in 2006, compared with 10.9 percent in 2004. However, Southwest Airlines remained the leader in 2006 with 24.2 percent of the market, down from 31 percent in 2004.

American Airlines saw its share of the New Orleans airport market rise to 16.9 percent in 2006 from 12.2 percent in 2005. Delta Airlines had 13.4 percent of the market in 2006, followed by United Airlines with 9.3 percent, US Airways with 7.3 percent, Northwest Airlines with 5.3 percent, AirTran with 3.4 percent and JetBlue with 2.9 percent.

Mail and freight handled through Armstrong totaled about 101.5 million pounds in 2006, about 57 percent of the amount recorded in 2004, the airport said.