Top 50 US Metros ranked by average daily airport O&D traffic.

[SlidellWx]

Metro          Daily O&D      total     total O&D    O&D %  # of Airports
New York	 127,801   51,883,694   23,131,981  44.60%  6 airports
Los Angeles      104,723   34,789,171   18,954,863  54.50%  4 airports
Chicago	         86,821    39,281,585   15,714,601  40.00%  2 airports
Miami	         79,636    31,262,044   14,414,116  46.10%  3 airports
Las Vegas        73,138    20,224,090   13,237,978  65.50%	
San Francisco    68,838    22,139,378   12,459,678  56.30%  2 airports
Orlando          68,040    18,211,975   12,315,240  67.60%  2 airports
Dallas/Ft.Worth  59,577    31,149,065   10,783,437  34.60%  2 airports
Atlanta	         56,645    43,008,154	10,252,745  23.80%	
Phoenix	         54,040    18,968,897	 9,781,240  51.60%	
Denver	         53,747    24,337,554	 9,728,207  40.00%	
Washington       52,832    19,915,669	 9,562,592  48.00%  2 airports
Boston	         44,673    12,068,312    8,085,813  67.00%	
Seattle	         43,376    14,787,443	 7,851,056  53.10%	
Philadelphia     41,860    14,878,298    7,576,660  50.90%	
Houston	         39,021    23,606,848    7,062,801  29.90%  2 airports
Tampa	         39,021     9,348,162	 7,062,801  75.30%  2 airports
Baltimore        38,901    10,001,992	 7,041,081  70.30%	
San Diego        36,242     8,171,820	 6,559,802  80.30%	
Minneapolis      34,399    16,173,119	 6,226,219  38.50%	
Detroit	         33,128    15,715,346    5,996,168  38.20%	
Salt Lake City   22,696     9,988,837	 4,107,976  41.10%	
St. Louis        22,361     6,258,829	 4,047,341  64.70%	
Portland         22,144     6,116,995	 4,008,064  65.50%	
Sacramento       20,175     4,356,274    3,651,675  83.80%	
Kansas City      19,973     4,685,648	 3,615,113  77.20%	
Charlotte        19,562    17,215,648	 3,540,722  20.60%	
Raleigh/Durham   18,585     4,291,234	 3,363,885  78.40%	
San Jose         18,581     4,039,922    3,363,161  83.30%	
New Orleans      18,378     3,977,881	 3,326,418  83.60%	
Austin	         17,189     3,915,683	 3,111,209  79.50%	
Pittsburgh       16,913     3,922,714    3,061,253  78.00%	
San Antonio      16,777     3,830,211	 3,036,637  79.30%	
Nashville	 16,751     4,329,413	 3,031,931  70.00%	
Indianapolis     16,377     4,155,161    2,964,237  71.30%	
Riverside	 14,623     3,302,863    2,646,763  80.10%  2 airports
Columbus	 13,328     3,028,930	 2,412,368  79.60%	
Jacksonville     12,741     2,835,324	 2,306,121  81.30%	
Milwaukee        12,541     3,560,224	 2,269,921  63.80%	
Hartford	 12,099     3,056,490    2,189,919  71.70%	
Cleveland	 11,767     4,719,504    2,129,827  45.10%	
Buffalo	         11,662     2,536,000	 2,110,822  83.20%	
Providence       10,617     2,168,664	 1,921,677  88.60%	
Norfolk	          9,343     2,140,859	 1,691,083  79.00%  2 airports
Cincinnati	  7,976     5,416,171    1,443,656  26.70%	
Memphis	          7,408     4,855,090	 1,340,848  27.60%	
Oklahoma City	  6,763     1,643,426	 1,224,103  74.50%	
Louisville	  6,697     1,593,425	 1,212,157  76.10%	
Richmond	  6,617     1,608,958	 1,197,677  74.40%	
Birmingham	  5,845     1,444,029	 1,057,945  73.30%

DomesticO&D Data is obtained from table 6 at this site http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/X-5...farereport.htm. Unfortunately, this data is only for the lower 48 states. Could not find international data.

All other data was obtained from monthly airport stats posted on airport webpages. All data is for the first 6 months of 2009. Used top 50 metros for metro list.

Thought these were interesting Origin & Destination market size stats to see. If there were no hubs, and all service was simply point to point the 10 busiest markets would be New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Orlando, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Atlanta, and Phoenix.

[northbay]

wait, is there a reason san jose is separate from san francisco? because if they were included together sf would be wayyyy higher on that list , just about tied with chicago

not this different msa bulls--- again!

[bnk]

Originally Posted by northbay420

wait, is there a reason san jose is separate from san francisco? because if they were included together sf would be wayyyy higher on that list , just about tied with chicago

not this different msa bulls--- again!

Same issue with Milwaukee's airport. Those figures highly inflated from Chicagoland travelers and should be included in the Chicago Airport number boosting it to at least 3 internationals. Then there is Gary and Rockford too to figure in. But where does one stop.

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by bnk

Same issue with Milwaukee's airport. Those figures highly inflated from Chicagoland travelers and should be included in the Chicago Airport number boosting it to at least 3 internationals. Then there is Gary and Rockford too to figure in. But where does one stop.

I'm sure there is some overlap in catchment areas there... but Milwaukee is 90 freakin' miles away from Chicago... it's not like SF/SJ or DC/Balt. The zeal amongst some Chicagoans to absorb Milwaukee into their metro based on a thin, intermittent urbanized lakeshore corridor is beyond the pale. Milwaukee is an independent market that has close ties to Chicago based on relative proximity. It is not a junior partner in some multi-nodal mega-metro like Baltimore to DC.

And Milwaukee's O&D number does not appear to be inflated like say... Baltimore. Milwaukee had 2,269,921 O&D passengers... which is less than similar sized markets Columbus (2,412,368) and Indianapolis (2,964,237).

[blade_bltz]

I would think Manchester and Providence should be added to Logan. I've never flown out of Manchester, but I do know they market themselves as a Logan alternative. (just looked it up...in 2006 the airport's name was changed to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport...)

I definitely know that Providence's TF Green is very popular in the western burbs of Boston. Good news: an MBTA commuter rail stop at Providence's TF Green Airport is currently under construction, and will be completed sometime next year. It'll provide the closest rail-to-air connection in the country.

[Cirrus]

^
Same issue with Baltimore and Washington. In every way that matters, BWI is a Washington-area airport. In fact, if you live in the inner city of Washington, BWI is more convenient and easier to access than Dulles.

Also same issue with Riverside and LA. I assume most people here would say they should be combined?

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

^
Same issue with Baltimore and Washington. In every way that matters, BWI is a Washington-area airport. In fact, if you live in the inner city of Washington, BWI is more convenient and easier to access than Dulles.

Also same issue with Riverside and LA. I assume most people here would say they should be combined?

My dad always used BWI for business trips when he could (in the 1960s even)--MUCH more convenient to DC's MD suburbs than Reagan or Dulles.

But the fiction that San Jose is somehow a separate metro is increasingly egregious and will only get more so when HSR links downtown SF and downtown SJ and you can get from one to the other in minutes. The urbanization is already more of less continuous (except for military, government and park land and other "reservations").

[Austinlee]

New York has SIX airports?? Didn't know that.

[fleonzo]

Originally Posted by PA Pride

New York has SIX airports?? Didn't know that.

Yes,

JFK- NYC
La Guad- NYC
Newark- NJ
McArthur- Long Island, NY
White Plains- Westchester, NY
Newburgh- Orange Co,NY

I've flown out of all them and they all pretty much suck...all are super busy. But if I had to pick the least sucky one I'd pick McArthur way out in eastern LI!

[Cirrus]

Here is the list modified to include all three SF and DC area airports, and the 6 LA/Riverside airports. If there are other cities so split, others can feel free to modify & combine.

Metro          Daily O&D      total     total O&D    O&D %  # of Airports
New York	 127,801   51,883,694   23,131,981  44.60%  6 airports
LA Area		 119,346   38,092,034	21,601,626  56.70%  6 airports <-----
DC Area		 91,733	   29,917,661	16,603,673  55.50%  3 airports <-----
SF Area		 87,419	   26,179,300	15,822,839  60.44%  3 airports <-----
Chicago	         86,821    39,281,585   15,714,601  40.00%  2 airports
Miami	         79,636    31,262,044   14,414,116  46.10%  3 airports
Las Vegas        73,138    20,224,090   13,237,978  65.50%	
Orlando          68,040    18,211,975   12,315,240  67.60%  2 airports
Dallas/Ft.Worth  59,577    31,149,065   10,783,437  34.60%  2 airports
Atlanta	         56,645    43,008,154	10,252,745  23.80%	
Phoenix	         54,040    18,968,897	 9,781,240  51.60%	
Denver	         53,747    24,337,554	 9,728,207  40.00%	
Boston	         44,673    12,068,312    8,085,813  67.00%	
Seattle	         43,376    14,787,443	 7,851,056  53.10%	
Philadelphia     41,860    14,878,298    7,576,660  50.90%	
Houston	         39,021    23,606,848    7,062,801  29.90%  2 airports
Tampa	         38,865     8,888,162	 7,034,565  79.20%	
San Diego        36,242     8,171,820	 6,559,802  80.30%	
Minneapolis      34,399    16,173,119	 6,226,219  38.50%	
Detroit	         33,128    15,715,346    5,996,168  38.20%	
Salt Lake City   22,696     9,988,837	 4,107,976  41.10%	
St. Louis        22,361     6,258,829	 4,047,341  64.70%	
Portland         22,144     6,116,995	 4,008,064  65.50%	
Sacramento       20,175     4,356,274    3,651,675  83.80%	
Kansas City      19,973     4,685,648	 3,615,113  77.20%	
Charlotte        19,562    17,215,648	 3,540,722  20.60%	
Raleigh/Durham   18,585     4,291,234	 3,363,885  78.40%	
New Orleans      18,378     3,977,881	 3,326,418  83.60%	
Austin	         17,189     3,915,683	 3,111,209  79.50%	
Pittsburgh       16,913     3,922,714    3,061,253  78.00%	
San Antonio      16,777     3,830,211	 3,036,637  79.30%	
Nashville	 16,751     4,329,413	 3,031,931  70.00%	
Indianapolis     16,377     4,155,161    2,964,237  71.30%	
Columbus	 13,328     3,028,930	 2,412,368  79.60%	
Jacksonville     12,741     2,835,324	 2,306,121  81.30%	
Milwaukee        12,541     3,560,224	 2,269,921  63.80%	
Hartford	 12,099     3,056,490    2,189,919  71.70%	
Cleveland	 11,767     4,719,504    2,129,827  45.10%	
Buffalo	         11,662     2,536,000	 2,110,822  83.20%	
Providence       10,617     2,168,664	 1,921,677  88.60%	
Norfolk	          9,343     2,140,859	 1,691,083  79.00%  2 airports
Cincinnati	  7,976     5,416,171    1,443,656  26.70%	
Memphis	          7,408     4,855,090	 1,340,848  27.60%	
Oklahoma City	  6,763     1,643,426	 1,224,103  74.50%	
Louisville	  6,697     1,593,425	 1,212,157  76.10%	
Richmond	  6,617     1,608,958	 1,197,677  74.40%	
Birmingham	  5,845     1,444,029	 1,057,945  73.30%

... So OP's statement about how "if there were no hubs, and all service was simply point to point the 10 busiest markets would be..." should be modified to read:
1. New York
2. Los Angeles
3. Washington
4. San Francisco
5. Chicago
6. Miami
7. Las Vegas
8. Orlando
9. Dallas/Ft. Worth
10. Atlanta

... Although Boston might crack the top 10 if Providence and Manchester were added to Logan. Combining Boston and Providence gets you 55,290 O&D passengers, good for 11th place and only 1,355 behind Atlanta for 10th. Unfortunately OP's link to the original report is broken, so I can't look up Manchester to see if it's big enough to cover that 1,355 difference.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Here is the list modified to include all three SF and DC area airports, and the 6 LA/Riverside airports. If there are other cities so split, others can feel free to modify & combine.

.

Kindly add Milwaukee to Chicago.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by bnk

Same issue with Milwaukee's airport. Those figures highly inflated from Chicagoland travelers and should be included in the Chicago Airport number boosting it to at least 3 internationals. Then there is Gary and Rockford too to figure in. But where does one stop.

i'd be shocked if there are more chicagoans who travel north to use MKE than milwaukeeans who travel south to use ORD.

and seriously, gary and rockford? really? woo-hoo, that'll boost chicago's numbers by another several dozen people!


EDIT: actually, RFD is much busier than i would have ever guessed, with 215,000 passengers in 2007, but still rockford is not a part of chicago's CSA, despite the fact that they renamed the airport "chicago rockford international airport" as a marketing ploy. Gary currently has no regularly scheduled commercial passenger service.

Originally Posted by bnk

Kindly add Milwaukee to Chicago.

no. there is some overlap between those two markets, however there is no census bureau definition of any kind that combines chicago and milwaukee into a single metro entity, not UA, not MSA, not even the mighty CSA. SF/SJ and DC/baltimore were combined by cirrus because the census bureau does define those places as single entities when using its most liberal formula of metro area definition.

Originally Posted by Evergrey

but Milwaukee is 90 freakin' miles away from Chicago...

i agree with your larger point, evergrey, but for the sake of accuracy, the straight line distance from downtown chicago to downtown milwaukee is actually 80 miles. the straight line distance from the city of chicago's northernmost border to the city of milwaukee's southernmost border is only 63 miles.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

...
... Although Boston might crack the top 10 if Providence and Manchester were added to Logan. Combining Boston and Providence gets you 55,290 O&D passengers, good for 11th place and only 1,355 behind Atlanta for 10th. Unfortunately OP's link to the original report is broken, so I can't look up Manchester to see if it's big enough to cover that 1,355 difference.

Start doing that and you'll have to add Gary to Chicago, and maybe even Milwaukee, since a significant portion of northern Chicagoland treats the Milwaukee airport as part of the metro area. There's an Amtrak stop at the airport, too, which lets you get there from downtown Chicago pretty easily. Even I've flown in and out of it, and I live in downtown Chicago. Obviously some of their traffic is for Milwaukee, but then again some of San Jose's and Riverside's traffic is for San Jose and Riverside totally apart from LA and SF, too.

One could even make an argument for South Bend, since the South Shore train leaves from under Millennium Park in Chicago and terminates right at the end of the departure gates at the South Bend airport. So from Downtown Chicago, you can actually take trains with no connections to four airports - O'Hare, Midway, Milwaukee, and South Bend. Five, if you count Gary, although that takes a little more work.

[iheartthed]

South Bend has an airport?

[novawolverine]

Originally Posted by emathias

Start doing that and you'll have to add Gary to Chicago, and maybe even Milwaukee, since a significant portion of northern Chicagoland treats the Milwaukee airport as part of the metro area. There's an Amtrak stop at the airport, too, which lets you get there from downtown Chicago pretty easily. Even I've flown in and out of it, and I live in downtown Chicago. Obviously some of their traffic is for Milwaukee, but then again some of San Jose's and Riverside's traffic is for San Jose and Riverside totally apart from LA and SF, too.

One could even make an argument for South Bend, since the South Shore train leaves from under Millennium Park in Chicago and terminates right at the end of the departure gates at the South Bend airport. So from Downtown Chicago, you can actually take trains with no connections to four airports - O'Hare, Midway, Milwaukee, and South Bend. Five, if you count Gary, although that takes a little more work.

I don't think we should start doing that, there are probably a number of places that could be consolidated in that case.

[SlidellWx]

For some reason the link gets pasted in with those damn ellipses. If you open the link in a new window...it should work fine. Sorry about that.

Thanks for pointing out PIE. I will add that to the totals. I should have noticed PIE popping up instead of TPA at times in the tables. Concerning Chicago...the Gary airport has no commercial carriers at this time, so it does not have any O&D traffic that is measured by the DOT. I tried to find every airport located within the boundaries defined by the Census bureau for the 50 largest MSA's in the country. I thought about doing it for CSA, but went with MSA instead. I see that other members took the numbers and combined into a CSA. I have no problem with that.

I found some stats very interesting. I was shocked at the low O&D traffic for Cincy...but it now makes sense after reading the other posts. I also noticed the isolated western cities phenomena. Salt Lake, Denver, Seattle, and Portland all have high O&D numbers. Looks like alot of people drive in from great distances to fly out of these airports.

Thanks for the interest in these stats. It took a good 20 hours to get it all together. Thought it would be cool to share.

[northbay]

i like the new list better. thank u cirrus. i think it does a better job describing the regions

[brickell]

It doesn't look like PIE was added to Tampa Metro either.

[Cirrus]

Just for kicks and giggles, here's the list ranked by total (not just O&D). I cut the list off at the 10 million line. And again, Boston would be a little higher with Providence and Manchester, and (apparently) Tampa with whatever PIE is.

New York	 51,883,694
Atlanta	         43,008,154
Chicago	         39,281,585
LA Area		 38,092,034
Miami	         31,262,044
Dallas/Ft.Worth  31,149,065
DC Area		 29,917,661
SF Area		 26,179,300
Denver	         24,337,554
Houston	         23,606,848
Las Vegas        20,224,090
Phoenix	         18,968,897
Orlando          18,211,975
Charlotte        17,215,648
Minneapolis      16,173,119
Detroit	         15,715,346
Philadelphia     14,878,298
Seattle	         14,787,443
Boston	         12,068,312

[brickell]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

and (apparently) Tampa with whatever PIE is.

I was just throwing it in there for completeness. It's St. Petersburg-Clearwater International.

I doubt any of these are transfers so, it looks like it'd add another 700k or so.
http://www.fly2pie.com/media/statistics/tdcreport.pdf