All three of the Washington region’s airports saw a surge in passengers last year, with Ronald Reagan Washington National and Baltimore/Washington Thurgood Marshall International setting highs.
Reagan National saw 18.7 million passengers in 2007, topping the 2006 number by more than 100,000 passengers. It marked the third year in a row that the airport served a record number of flyers.
BWI topped 21 million passengers in 2007, a 1.7 percent climb from 2006 that officials attributed to the airport’s newly added Southwest Airlines flights to Pittsburgh and Oklahoma City.
Despite the steady customer growth, Reagan National’s restricted number of flights means that no additional runways or terminals are planned for the airport, said Mark Treadaway, acting vice president for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which manages Reagan National and Washington Dulles International airports.
“National is a slot-restricted airport, so we don’t see significant growth here,” he said. “It was our biggest year ever, but it’s still relatively level.”
The airport is planning to add another 1,300 parking spaces to its A and B-C parking garages, with construction beginning at the end of the year.
Dulles saw 24.7 million passengers in 2007, officials said — a 7.5 percent increase from 2006.
That number was topped only in 2005, when the now-defunct Independence Air introduced 500 daily flights to Dulles, bringing passenger levels to 27 million that year.
“At Dulles, 2007 was an incredible year for international flights in particular, with over 6 million international passengers and five new international airlines,” Treadaway said.
Last year, United Airlines added international service to Beijing, Rome and Rio de Janeiro, and four other airlines began service to Madrid, Panama City, Doha, Qatar and Dublin.
“We expect a few more flight additions as the year progresses,” Treadaway said, but declined to provide details.
Dulles opened a new international terminal in January and is scheduled to open an additional runway this year.
