The National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) has recently released the latest data showing that in February 2023, there were a total of 15.735 million passenger enplanements (APIS/I-92 arrivals + departures) for US-International air traffic. This represents a 91.8% recovery of enplanements compared to the pre-pandemic volume in February 2019.
Non-stop air travel originating in February 2023.
In February 2023, the number of non-US citizen air passenger arrivals to the United States from foreign countries was 3.609 million, which is a 67.1% increase compared to February 2022 and 77.6% of the pre-pandemic February 2019 volume.
Additionally, there were 1.791 million overseas visitor arrivals (with stays of 1-night or more in the United States and visiting under certain visa types) (ADIS/ I-94) in February 2023. This marks the sixteenth consecutive month where overseas visitor arrivals have exceeded 1.0 million. In February 2023, overseas visitor arrivals were 68.8% of the pre-pandemic February 2019 volume, which is up from 67% in January 2022.
In February 2023, the number of US citizen air passenger departures from the United States to foreign countries was 4.252 million. This represents a 53.0% increase compared to February 2022 and is 9.3% higher than the volume in February 2019.
Worldwide highlights in February 2023
In terms of total air passenger travel (arrivals and departures) between the United States and other countries, the top five countries were Mexico with 3.037 million passengers, Canada with 2.127 million passengers, the United Kingdom with 1.004 million passengers, the Dominican Republic with 747,000 passengers, and Germany with 492,000 passengers.
The number of passengers for international regional air travel to/from the United States in February 2023 are as follows:
Europe with 3.224 million passengers, showing an 87.1% increase compared to February 2022 and a decrease of only 14.1% compared to February 2019; South/Central America/Caribbean with 4.454 million passengers, showing a 28.3% increase compared to February 2022 and a decrease of only 0.4% compared to February 2019; and Asia with 1.513 million passengers, showing a 279.2% increase compared to February 2022 but still down 45.4% compared to February 2019.
The top U.S. ports serving international locations in February 2023 were New York (JFK) with 2.041 million passengers, Miami (MIA) with 1.789 million passengers, Los Angeles (LAX) with 1.372 million passengers, Newark (EWR) with 882,000 passengers, and San Francisco (SFO) with 820,000 passengers.
In terms of the top foreign ports serving U.S. locations in February 2023, the following ports had the most passengers: Cancun (CUN) with 1.064 million passengers, London Heathrow (LHR) with 887,000 passengers, Toronto (YYZ) with 869,000 passengers, Mexico City (MEX) with 543,000 passengers, and Inchon (ICN) with 442,000 passengers.
