Ontario airport passenger count fell 2.8% in September while cargo tonnage rose 13.2%

Ontario International Airport counted 582,315 passengers in September, down 2.8% from 599,086 in September 2025, the Ontario International Airport Authority said in a release issued Oct. 22.

The authority said the drop tracked a small cut in the number of seats airlines offered at the airport as carriers managed higher fuel costs.

Domestic passengers totaled 535,481 in September, a 3.5% decrease, according to a table in the release. International passengers rose 5.4% to 46,834.

Nine-month totals

From January through September, the airport handled 5,274,568 passengers, compared with 5,278,343 in the same months of 2025, a decrease of 0.1%, the table showed. The authority described the total as "essentially even with prior year" and said the airport is on track to reach 7 million passengers this year.

International passengers for the nine months totaled 502,786, up 27.9% from 393,035. Domestic traffic was 4,771,782, down 2.3% from 4,885,308.

The authority said passenger volumes are more than 65% higher than in 2016, the year the airport came under local control.

"While passenger volumes declined 2.8% in September, our overall performance remains strong, with nearly 5.3 million travelers through the first nine months of the year and international traffic growing by almost 28%," Atif Elkadi, the authority's chief executive officer, said in the release.

Elkadi also said in the release that "airlines continue to adjust capacity in response to higher operating costs."

The carriers with the largest shares of September passengers were Southwest Airlines at 36.5%, American Airlines at 12.4%, Frontier Airlines and United Airlines at 10.9% each, and Alaska Airlines at 9.8%, the authority said.

Cargo

Cargo volume was 74,251 tons in September, up 13.2% from 65,587 tons a year earlier.

Freight accounted for 64,485 tons, up 16.9%. Mail was 9,767 tons, down 6.5%.

For the nine months, cargo totaled 649,034 tons, a 7.3% increase from 605,095. Freight was up 10.1% at 558,195 tons, and mail was down 7.4% at 90,838 tons.

According to the release, air cargo hubs around the world grew 3% in the month and 9% so far this year, smaller gains than Ontario's.

The authority, which owns and operates the airport, is a joint powers agreement of the city of Ontario and San Bernardino County, the release said.

The authority's August report, issued Sept. 24, had put that month's passenger count at 606,809, down 6.2% from a year earlier.