Barring a huge turnaround in December, the Lincoln Airport will finish the year with fewer than 300,000 passengers for the first time since 2014.
Passenger numbers plunged 18 percent at the airport in November compared with a year ago.
That leaves the airport's overall passenger numbers for the year at 268,103, 7 percent lower than they were at the same time last year.
Executive Director David Haring said most of the passenger decline this year can be attributed to fewer seats being offered by the two airlines serving the airport.
"The drop in passengers has been almost exclusively due to a significant drop in capacity, primarily from United," Haring said in an email.
United Airlines has been offering fewer seats in Lincoln for most of the year, as it has been using 50-seat regional jets for most of its flights to Denver and Chicago and has cut back on the number of larger jets it uses.
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For example, in November, United had 7,746 seats available for the month on its Lincoln flights, down nearly 29 percent from November 2017. In October, the numbers were 10,304, compared with 12,640 a year ago. For September, it was 10,050, compared with 12,100.
As a result, United's Lincoln passenger traffic is down 11 percent from 2017.
Haring said Delta Air Lines, on the other hand, actually had kept its seats available on Lincoln flights level with 2017 for most of the year, but cut them by more than 15 percent in November.
"In Delta’s case, we were informed that it was largely a systemic decision based upon overall performance experienced during prior years over the period of mid-October through November," Haring said in the email.
Still, despite a 7 percent drop in November compared with a year ago, Delta's numbers are up 2 percent for the year so far.
Delta started a new flight to Atlanta in September 2014, which helped boost passenger numbers at the airport to their highest level in eight years by 2016.
But passenger numbers fell last year, a trend that has continued into this year and accelerated.
Haring, for his part, is optimistic about 2019, in large part because "it appears as though we have turned a corner with respect to the capacity reductions."
He said United has already started bringing back larger 76-seat jets on some flights and forecast seating capacity for Delta and United combined is up 20 percent in the first quarter and 5 percent in the second quarter compared with the same periods in 2018.
The airport also hopes to attract new service to Dallas on American Airlines using a $750,000 grant it got from the Federal Aviation Administration. It's the same type of grant the airport used to secure the Atlanta flight.