Columbia Regional Airport sees large drop in Thanksgiving travel; confident numbers will rebound

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Columbia Regional Airport released flight numbers for the month of November on Tuesday which showed a major drop from the previous year. Despite the challenges the airport has faced due to the Coronavirus pandemic, COU is confident things will bounce back.

In Nov. of 2020, COU saw 7,613 people fly in and out of the airport compared to 25,008 people in Nov. of 2019. That's a 69.6% decrease from 2019.

The decrease comes as fewer people have been traveling because of COVID-19 and as health experts advised people not to.

Those numbers were not down much from the previous months. There were 7,456 people moving through the airport in September and 8,360 in October.

Columbia Regional Airport Manager, Mike Parks, said the number of people flying usually drops off in November each year.

"In comparison to what we've had since COVID, those numbers are really what we anticipated for November," Parks said.

Parks said since the beginning of the pandemic the airport has seen an increase in the number of people flying.

"Right now we have two flights to Chicago with United Airlines, and we also have two flights to Dallas with American Airlines, and they've really continued those flights really since back in the summer they've continued those flights and kept pretty steady," he said.

Moving into the Christmas season, Parks says he expects numbers to stay pretty steady from what they were in November.

The flight numbers from Columbia Regional Airport also tie into tourism in Columbia.

Megan McConachie with the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau said having the airport is a really important way to get more people to Columbia and new people to Columbia.

"The way people are traveling is changing and so we're going to kind of have to look at that and determine as we move forward if people are going to be traveling more by car, does that mean that we need to change how we're marketing Columbia," she said.

McConachie said Columbia usually sees fewer tourists in the winter months, but numbers have been lower than usual during COVID-19.

"What we've really done is kind of taken our focus inward and really encouraged people to shop local, and to support those local tourism businesses, because when people do start traveling again we still want Columbia to be a great destination to visit," she said.

McConachie said there was a smaller influx of people in Columbia for Thanksgiving and staying in Columbia hotels, but the bureau is not sure exactly how tourism was impacted yet because so many people are traveling by car.

She said this year there are no holiday parties and other events in local hotels which is another hit to the industry that has already been struggling.

Columbia Regional Airport received $8 million in CARES Act funding, which Parks said is going to be a big help.

"The CARES Act grant that we received definitely was a ... assisted the airport getting through these times just like it's assisted many other airports across the country," Parks said.

He said the airport expects numbers to increase as vaccines become available and everyday life beings to return to normal.

"The airport looks forward to seeing times return like they were before. We look forward to seeing the passengers that are not currently flying, flying again and able to go to those conferences and vacations and things," he said.