SAT NEWS

San Antonio airport passenger numbers plummet in first half of 2025

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San Antonio International Airport is suffering a decline in passenger numbers.

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After a record-breaking 2023 and 2024, fewer people are traveling from the San Antonio International Airport (SAT) in 2025. According to the airport's monthly report, passenger numbers dipped 2.4 percent in January through May.

"Several factors resulted in passenger numbers being below 2024 levels," wrote report author and Air Service Administrator Jacob Tyler. "This includes some reduction in demand because of economic uncertainty."

U.S. consumer confidence has taken a hit in 2025. A late-June survey by global think tank The Conference Board reported a 5.4-point drop in its Consumer Confidence Index in June and a 4.6-point fall in its Expectations Index, a bellwether of customer projections for the overall economy.

Earlier in the year, the San Antonio city budget noted a decrease in hotel occupancy tax revenue due to fewer bookings and a lower average room rate.

There were some bright spots in the SAT findings. Travel to Mexico was up six percent during the report's timeframe despite a slate of well-publicized incidents involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And holidays continue to draw large numbers of travelers.

"SAT did, however, experience its busiest Memorial Day Weekend travel period in the airport's history this year, up one percent year-over-year," noted Tyler.

Tyler also detailed a few new flights that will make SAT more attractive, including new nonstop flights to Atlanta from Frontier Airlines, nonstop routes to Detroit and Nashville from Spirit, and a seasonal increase in departures to Cancun, Mexico, and Minneapolis-St. Paul from Sun Country.

The multi-year closure of the Austin Convention Center is also expected to be beneficial to San Antonio's tourism sector, at least in the short term. The complete renovation of the Capital City's marquee event space is expected to wrap up in 2029.

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EXCESS BAGGAGE

Forbes ranks San Antonio among the worst cities for holiday travel

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San Antonio Airport passengers can put their feet up knowing their airport is one of the most reliable in the country.

If it seems like holiday travel is bad this year, that's because it is. A new study by Forbes Advisor ranked San Antonio as the sixth-worst city when it comes to domestic traveling during the peak winter season.

The good news is that San Antonio is better than its Texas neighbors. Dallas ranked No. 1 and Houston No. 3.

The bad news? San Antonio is pretty bad by their measurement.

Scores in the study were determined by averaging several factors, mostly centered around cost. These include the average price of a nightly hotel stay, the average cost of a renting a car for one day, money spent on daily meals, the average cost of airfare, percentage of cancelled flights, number of annual passengers per gate, hours of traffic annually, the amount of entertainment per person per year, amount of fatal traffic accidents and crime, and the entertainment per person annually.

Combined, these factors give travelers a rough idea of what a stay in the city might look like, though obviously individual experiences will vary wildly from the data.

Factors weighing Alamo City down include the second highest average daily car rental ($58.90, beaten only by San Francisco, California), tying with Dallas for the highest percentage of cancelled flights (24 percent), the second-highest number of passengers per gate (202,407, after Sacramento, California's 208,719), one of the lowest scores for arts and entertainment per 100,000 people, and the second-highest number of fatal car crashes per year.

However, the city ranks well in terms of food and drink per 100,00 people and average cost of a nightly hotel stay ($192.20). San Antonio also has the second-lowest rate of violent crime per 100,000, trailing only Honolulu, Hawaii, albeit distantly.

The numbers for the San Antonio International Airport (SAT) should be taken with a grain of salt. The Forbes Advisor study covers 2022-2024. SAT h as had a marked decline in airport traffic since 2024, losing 2.4 percent in a year.

Despite that, SAT is still ranked 13th in overall customer satisfaction by the 2025 J.D. Power survey, showing that while the gates may be busy, travelers don't seem to mind flying in and out of the city. And upcoming improvements, like the $2.5 billion third terminal and an array of new locally owned food options, might make it more attractive yet.

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