San Antonio International Airport

San Antonio International Airport Breaks Own Record with Number of Passengers Served in 2006

San Antonio International Airport is a three-runway commercial airport that is based in San Antonio, Texas. It seems that air travel is booming in this international airport because it was able to serve 8% more passengers in 2006 compared to 2005. The airport processed 8,031,405 passengers in 2006, while in 2005 it was able to serve 7,437,290 passengers instead.

Carriers serving the airport

There are currently 21 carriers using San Antonio International Airport, whose routes head to 43 metro destinations. The airport relies on 27 gates to meet the needs of passengers who are either part of the 280 average flight arrivals and departures per day. The most popular destinations from San Antonio International Airport are the cities of Washington, DC; Atlanta; Phoenix; Los Angeles; New York; Baltimore; Chicago; Las Vegas; Houston; and Dallas.

The honor of being the biggest passenger airline at the airport presently goes to Southwest Airlines since it accounts for 35.24% of enplanement of the passenger population of San Antonio International Airport, as of December 2006. Following Southwest Airlines, the next three major airlines at the airport are American Airlines, Continental Airlines and Northwest Airlines (not necessarily in that order.) ExpressJet Airlines, for its part, considers the airport the site of one of its focus-cities. Additional services of the airport Certain flights, usually those headed for Houston and Dallas, are on occasion diverted to San Antonio International Airport instead of heading for airports in those locations, particularly when the weather is very unstable. This is more common in the summer when thunderstorms are frequent, compared to the milder winter months. There are also times when VIP aircraft meant for San Antonio Aerospace head for San Antonio International Airport.

Master Plan for Airport Expansion

San Antonio International Airport is projected to expand its gate capacity to 35 after its ongoing construction work is completed. Additional parking and terminal structures will also be added. Since the airport is found at the junction of US Highway 281 and Interstate 410, it will benefit from ongoing refurbishment of those two major ground transportation routes. When an additional two-level concourse sporting 8 gates is built by the latter half of 2008, the concourse will be named Terminal B while the existing Terminal 2 will be demolished. Terminal 1 thus becomes Terminal A instead. By 2009, construction is set to begin on the new Terminal C which will house 5 gates at the start but has a capacity to expand total gates to 11. Construction is slated to be finished by 2011. San Antonio International Airport will then have 28 jet-bridges all in all, but after airport officials finish expanding Terminal C, the number of jet bridges should increase to 35 total. Terminal B and Terminal C stand to benefit from the current expansion efforts of the bi-level roadway across from Terminal 1. In addition, a new parking garage is projected to be built beside the existing parking garages. That facility will offer 3,000 parking slots over a 1.1-million- square-foot space spread out over five storeys.

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