More

people traveled through the Tri-Cities Airport last year than ever before.

A total of 785,164 passengers passed through the Pasco airport in 2018. That’s 38,000 more people, or a 5 percent increase, compared with the previous year.

United

Airlines’ addition of a third daily flight to Denver helped spur the growth, as

did Delta’s decision to extend its second daily flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul,

according to airport officials.

“I’m

proud of our team’s ability to consistently deliver excellent customer service

while accommodating a record-setting number of passengers,” said Buck Taft,

director of the airport, in a news release. “The fact that more people are

choosing to fly out of Tri-Cities instead of taking the long drive over the

mountains is a sign that convenience and customer service are increasingly

important to travelers.”

The passenger number could increase this year when the airport begins nonstop service to Los Angeles in March.

The

Pasco airport currently offers nonstop flights to seven destinations, including

San Francisco, Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Airlines

count their passengers by tallying the number of enplanements, the number of

people who board an aircraft, with the number of deplanements, the number of people

arriving.

In

2018, the airport saw 395,084 enplanements. United Airlines had the largest

year-over-year gain with 60,547 boarding passengers, a 23 percent increase.

Delta’s numbers also were up in 2018, with 168,930 boardings, a 6 percent increase.

Delta

carried 43 percent of the Tri-City market in 2018, Alaska 32 percent, United 15

percent, and Allegiant 10 percent. The busiest month was December, which also

saw a 15 percent increase in enplanements over the previous December.

The Port of Pasco completed a multimillion airport remodeling project in 2017 that nearly doubled the size of the terminal and expanded the security checkpoint area.