San Jose, Oakland airports rebound — yet stay below pre-COVID heights

Passenger travel activity continues to rebound at the international airports in San Jose and Oakland — yet both aviation hubs remain far below the heights they reached prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

San Jose International Airport handled slightly more than 821,800 passengers during February, which was up 34% from the same month in 2022, according to a post on the airport’s website.

Oakland International Airport accommodated just over 794,300 passengers in February, representing an increase of 19% compared with February 2022, the aviation complex reported.

Measured over the most recent 12-month period that ended in February, both airports are showing steady improvement compared with recent years.

Oakland Airport handled 11.5 million passengers during the one-year period that ended in February. That topped the East Bay aviation hub’s 4.62 million passengers in 2020, 8.14 million in 2021 and 11.15 million in 2022.

San Jose Airport accommodated 11.85 million passengers over the 12-month period that ended in February. That exceeded the South Bay travel center’s 4.71 million passengers in 2020, 7.36 million in 2021 and 11.33 million in 2022.

The fortunes of both airports nosedived during the coronavirus pandemic as a result of government-ordered business shutdowns and worldwide travel restrictions to combat the spread of the deadly virus.

Even as passenger activity has begun to increase at the San Jose and Oakland airports, the two aviation hubs face an arduous path to fully convalesce from their coronavirus-induced economic maladies.

Both airports remain far below the activity levels they achieved in 2019, the final full year before the coronavirus shutdowns caused air travel to decline.

San Jose International’s passenger activity in the most recent 12 months was 24.3% below where it was during 2019, when the aviation hub accommodated an all-time-high 15.65 million passengers.

Oakland International’s passenger total over the one-year period ending in February was 14.1% below the 13.38 million passengers it handled in 2019. In 2018, Oakland Airport accommodated an all-time record of 13.59 million passengers.