Little Labor Expected for Travelers at PIT

If you’re flying from Pittsburgh International Airport this Labor Day weekend, you’ll join nearly 187,000 others in celebrating summer’s last hurrah.

But those numbers actually rank lower than most other holiday travel periods — less than Fourth of July (189,400), Memorial Day (187,600), Thanksgiving (193,900) and Christmas (178,500).

Day-by-day passenger counts are difficult to measure, but airports can see how many daily airline seats are being offered, and it’s a lot.

The Airlines for America trade group estimates 16.5 million passengers will fly worldwide on U.S. carriers during a week-long period sandwiched around Labor Day (Aug. 29 – Sept. 4). That total is a 3.5 percent increase from comparable dates in 2017.

To help meet the additional demand from holiday travelers, U.S. airlines have added about 92,000 more seats as compared to 2017, which is consistent with the trend at PIT this summer, along with overall increases in passenger traffic, which was up more than six percent in July.

The busiest day for Labor Day travel will be Friday, when an estimated 2.76 million pass