Sky Harbor International Airport records busiest tourism season ever

The Valley’s tourism season, which runs from January through April, ended up being the busiest ever at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

The season was capped off with the NCAA Men’s Final Four being hosted in Glendale, which brought tens of thousands of visitors to the Valley and led to Sky Harbor having its busiest April ever, according to the city of Phoenix, which owns and operates Sky Harbor. To accommodate the extra people coming to the Valley for the Final Four, Delta Air Lines added additional routes to Phoenix from North Carolina and Alabama, which is where two of this year’s Final Four teams traveled from.

In April, Sky Harbor recorded 4,526,096 total passengers going through its terminals, a 6.2% increase from April 2023, according to a report released on May 29 from the Phoenix Aviation Department.

April’s results come after Sky Harbor reported its busiest month ever in March, which saw more than 5 million total passengers at the region’s primary airport.

Sky Harbor surpassed 2019’s total passenger count in 2023, a sign that the aviation industry, at least in Phoenix, has recovered from the slump caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Last year ended up being the busiest year in Sky Harbor’s history, and the airport is outpacing 2023 so far this year.

This story is posted in partnership with Phoenix Business Journal. Click to read the full story.