How Busy Were The Airport And Ferries During Fourth Of July Weekend?
David Creed •
The long Fourth of July holiday weekend has come and gone and with the island's busiest weekend in the rearview mirror, the Current caught up with airport and ferry officials to gain an understanding of how this year's operations and passenger traffic stacked up with previous July 4th weekends.
While numbers continue to trickle in, the early indications from airport and ferry officials are that while it was a very busy weekend, operations and passenger numbers are coming in at standard levels so far compared to previous July 4th weekends.
Airport manager Warren Smith told the Current that the airport had 1,893 operations from Thursday, July 3rd through Monday, July 7th as well as 6,587 enplanements. They sold 89,602 gallons of Jet A fuel (used in commercial aircraft) and 3,516.4 gallons of Avgas (aviation gasoline), which is used in piston-engine aircraft. The southwest ramp, which is where private jets are parked and private charters drop off their travelers, had 521 passengers.
The airport's operations were much more tame and smooth this summer compared to recent years. The airport set a record on July 6th, 2024, for the most departing commercial airline passengers screened by TSA in a single day, with 2,004 people leaving the island, and dealt with heavy fog the following day, which backed up flights and forced cancellations to Delta and American Airlines flights to LaGuardia Airport in New York.
In 2023, the airport experienced what former airport manager Noah Karberg said was "probably the busiest 24-hour arrival period that we’ve ever had" on June 30th, 2023 and July 1st, 2023. Independence Day was on Tuesday in 2023. The airport was forced to take several measures after selling over 27,000 gallons of Jet A fuel on that Friday including fuel delays for aircraft outside of medflights and scheduled passenger service, as well as ramp closures.
The number of operations at the airport to begin the month of July this year are slightly down from last year but significantly lower from pre-COVID levels in 2019 according to statistics provided by Smith. Below are the operations from July 1st - July 8th in each years since 2019.
2025 – 2564 operations
2024 – 2628 operations
2023 – 2180 operations
2022 – 2611 operations
2021 – 2909 operations
2020 – 2070 operations
2019 – 3869 operations
When it comes to ferry services, Hy-Line Cruises president Murray Scudder said that traffic was heavy and comparable to past Fourth of July weekends but did not provide any specific numbers. The Steamship Authority’s communications director Sean Driscoll said the boat line did not have any statistics readily available and that it can take some time for them to become available. We will update this story with any analytics the ferry operators are able to provide as they become available.