The number of passengers heading through Norfolk International Airport continues its upward trajectory.
Norfolk International Airport set passenger records in 2022 and 2023, with 4.5 million passing through the airport last year.
This year, it hoped to top 5 million.
Spokesman Chris Jones said the airport’s traveler numbers will likely come in just below that, still setting a new record as growth across the industry slows slightly.
“When you get to a really, really high level, exceeding that level becomes more and more of a challenge,” Jones said.
One of the things that could play a part in stopping Norfolk from breaking the 5 million mark: the Crowdstrike software outage in July, which shut down Windows computers around the globe and caused thousands of canceled U.S. flights over the course of a few days.
“I don’t know if that will be the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you will, to keep us from hitting 5 million this year,” Jones said.
Year-over-year passenger growth at Norfolk is likely to slow down to look more like normal growth, which Jones said is on the order of a few percent, rather than the double-digit increases in traffic it was seeing as America emerged from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, with passenger traffic up 9% through September, that will likely mean a third consecutive record-breaking year for the airport that has worked to add carriers and expand flights over the last few years.
Most notably, Breeze Airlines started service out of Norfolk in 2021 and has rapidly expanded its offerings, including international flights.
The airport broke ground on a billion-dollar expansion earlier this year aimed at improving international travel, with plans to add three new gates, a new on-site hotel and U.S. Customs inspection facility.
The airline that’s carried the most people through Norfolk so far this year has been American, with just over a million passengers.
Reporter Ryan Murphy contributed to this report.
