Airport traffic continues to climb

October continued to see record-setting traffic at Southwest Florida International Airport as more than 537,000 passengers traveled through the airport, an increase of 4.7 percent compared to October 2006. Year-to-date, passenger traffic is up 7.2 percent over the same period last year.

"Passenger traffic continues to be strong as we head into the busy winter travel season," said Robert M. Ball, executive director of the Lee County Port Authority. "We are particularly pleased that October was the 15th consecutive month of record-breaking passenger traffic at Southwest Florida International Airport."

The traffic leader for the month of September was Delta with 73,215 passengers traveling to and from Fort Myers. Rounding out the top five airlines were Southwest (71,520), JetBlue (54,097), Air Tran (51,543) and US Airways (47,294).

At Southwest Florida International Airport, there were 6,182 aircraft movements (takeoffs and landings) recorded, an increase of 4.9 percent over October 2006. Page Field General Aviation Airport saw 6,701 movements. In addition, over 3.2 million pounds of air freight moved through both airports in October 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