St. Pete-Clearwater Airport Hosts Record Number Of Passengers

ST. PETERSBURG, FL -- For the first time in its history, St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport has surpassed two million passengers in a year, breaking its all-time passenger record for the third consecutive year.

December 2017 proved to be the airport’s biggest December in history while the number of monthly passengers increased by 17 percent over 2016.

The St. Pete-Clearwater airport, abbreviated PIE, ended 2017 with an overall increase of 12 percent, amounting to a total of 2,055,269 passengers for the year.

Airport officials partly attribute the increase to the fact that Allegiant, the domestic airline serving PIE, added service to nine more cities in 2017. PIE’s international airline is Sunwing Airlines.

In the Federal Aviation Administration recently published list of top growth airports for 2016, St. Pete-Clearwater ranked third in the nation for small airports.

This comes as good news to airport officials, which recently kicked off an ambitious 20-year master plan to increase the number of passengers flying into and out of the St. Pete-Clearwater airport.

Situated in eastern Pinellas County, the airport encompasses 1,900 acres including two runways and more than 1,400 of airfield, terminal and aviation facilities.

Photo via PIE