SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Syracuse Hancock International Airport is experiencing a travel boom this week due to the Syracuse City School District’s spring break. City schools are on pause from Monday, April 11 to Friday, April 15th, and many families are taking advantage of the break by heading out of Central New York.
The airport has been seeing about 4,300 to 4,500 departures everyday since last Friday, an increase of of about 300-400 passengers per day according to Syracuse Regional Airport Association Executive Director Jason Terreri.
Terreri said that people are back to traveling at a record-setting pace as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wane.
“This year, we’re actually on track to be busier than we were in 2019,” Terreri said. “2019 was our busiest year on record in about three decades, so we’re back.”
He said SYR is already ahead of the 2019 travel pace through the first three months of the year by eleven percent.
Spring break is typically the third-busiest time of the year for travel out of SYR, behind only winter break and Thanksgiving.
Terreri also noted the accommodations that SYR has made in order to keep up with the travel spike, including adding new airlines and service to new destinations.
Parking was a primary concern for airport officials going into this week and they prepared by allocating nearly 500 additional parking spots for the public in a former employee lot. But, Terreri said that they have not needed them so far and were actually able to close the overflow lot.
The presence of spring break was felt across the airport on Monday, with the typical business travelers and college students swapped for youthful joy and kids galore.
Transportation Security Administraction officers including Dalton Zerkowski said that they enjoy the increased presence of children in the airport.
Zerkowski said that he tries to make travel as easy as possible for families with children, and typically lets kids keep their shoes on through security. He also tries to search strollers without breaking them down entirely.
For those like the Walts family, spring break is as simple as finding some warmer weather. They are headed off to Fort Lauderdale, FL to find some fun in the sun. Gordon Walts says that he and his wife have traveled sporadically throughout the pandemic, but this is the first flight for his third-grade daughter Josie.
As he motioned to the required mask on his face, Walts said “hopefully we won’t need these when we come back.”
They, like Terreri, are hopeful that COVID numbers will continue to fall and make airline travel easier and less restrictive; and this week’s spring break is certainly a hopeful sign.
