Last year during April, the Lincoln Airport averaged more than 900 passengers a day.
This year, the number was about 700. For the whole month.
With air travel almost nonexistent because of the coronavirus outbreak, the airport saw a 97% decline in passenger traffic last month compared with April 2019.
There were 705 passengers for the month, less than two dozen a day.
Delta Air Lines had 1,600 seats available during the month and its planes were 10% full on average. Last year, it filled 85% of the more than 5,600 seats it offered.
United Airlines fared even worse, filling 8% of its 2,200 available seats for the month. In April 2019, it filled 79% of its 11,000 available seats.
Delta averaged 10 passengers a day last month and United 13.
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Airport Executive Director David Haring said the numbers are bad, but they are not unique to Lincoln.
"The entire industry is down 90-95%," he said in an email. On May 9, he noted, the Transportation Security Administration screened 169,580 passengers nationally compared with more than 1.9 million on the same day a year earlier.
The April decline in Lincoln comes after the airport saw a 53% year-over-year decline in March.
Through the first four months of 2020, overall passenger numbers are now down 38% compared with the same period in 2019.
Haring said he does not see things getting better in May.
"While several actions will need to take place to turn numbers around, including airlines putting full inventory back in the market, it largely rests on consumers, as the demand will have to return first," Haring said. "Businesses need to be in full swing and allowing travel, and consumers need to be actually willing to travel."
Haring said that while April and May will likely mark the bottom, it could take six months to see a meaningful uptick in passenger numbers. And he said it could take two or three years for passenger numbers to return to prepandemic levels.
The Airport Authority last month voted to allow Haring to apply for up to $5.6 million in aid from the federal government as part of $10 billion in pandemic-related aid available to airports. He said he applied and the grant has been approved, although the airport has not yet received any money.