Weather caused passenger declines at Dayton airport

For the second month, the harsh winter weather caused a large passenger decline at Dayton International Airport.

February wrapped with a 12 percent decline in passengers boarding at the airport — from 91,284 that month in 2013 to 80,311 in 2014. Year-to-date, the percent decline is about the same, down from 184,740 to 162,311.

In January, passenger boardings also declined 12 percent compared to January 2013 as the airport had 183 outbound flights cancelled because of bad weather throughout the country. Passenger boardings were only 82,000 in January compared with 93,461 in 2013.

In January, flights were also subject to major delays. Only slightly more than half the planes arriving at the airport — 54.9 percent — were on time. Departures were on time 64.8 percent of the time. That compares to 2013 figures that show January of that year had 77.6 of arriving flights on time and 81.5 percent of departing flights.

Besides the harsh weather, the departure of Frontier Airlines also contributed to the decline, said airport spokeswoman Linda Hughes. The airline ceased operations here in May.

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