Airport traffic breaks 30-year record

FORT MYERS — Passenger traffic at Southwest Florida International Airport rose to a record 735,739 people in December, breaking the three-decade record for the month.

“December 2013 was the best December in the 30-year history of the airport and our performance for the year was the best since 2007,” says Robert Ball, executive director of the Lee County Port Authority, in a statement. For the year 2013, passenger traffic through the Fort Myers airport rose 3.9% to 7.6 million people compared with 2012.

The last December record for passenger traffic in Fort Myers was in 2006, when 725,909 passengers passed through the airport. The airport's best year also was in 2006, when just more than 8 million passengers passed through the airport.

“In addition, international traffic had a significant increase of nearly 12% in 2013 compared to 2012,” Ball added in the statement.

In December, Delta carried the most passengers, followed by AirTran, JetBlue, Southwest and Spirit. Airport officials say airlines have added service to Fort Myers to accommodate increasing demand.