Lafayette Regional Airport reached a historical milestone in 2007 with an unprecedented 14 percent growth. The year will go into the record books as the busiest ever in terms of passenger and cargo activity since record keeping began in the early 1970s.  The airport finished its busy year with 221,722 enplanements, the number of passengers boarding aircraft, and 219,904 deplanements, an increase of 27,966 and 26,366 respectively over 2006 figures.  Activity in December continued a yearlong trend of increased activity for the month over the previous year.  Enplanements were 18,920 and deplanements totaled 18,659 for the month. Both enplanements and deplanements figures ranked as the best on record for the month of December.

Load factors, the overall percentage of filled seats on flights, for all four airlines continued to be strong in December with Atlantic Southeast, the Delta Connection, leading the way at 79 percent, followed by Continental Express at 74.6 percent, Northwest Airlink at 73.4 percent and American Eagle at 67.8 percent. For the year, Atlantic Southeast lead the carriers with an 80 percent load factor, followed closely by Continental Express at 79 percent, American Eagle at 72 percent and Northwest Airlink at 71 percent.

Equally impressive were the cargo totals for 2007, which set records for amount of cargo enplaned and deplaned.  Enplaned cargo for December was 1,073,422 pounds, bringing the totals for 2007 to 14,967,523. Deplaned cargo was 1,595,798 pounds in December, bringing the record total to 16,950,114.  Deplaned cargo for the year marked a remarkable 87.4 percent increase over the previous year.

“We had an astounding number of passengers and cargo come through Lafayette Regional Airport in 2007,” says Chairman Carroll Robichaux, Jr. of the Lafayette Airport Commission.  “The records we set are a positive confirmation that our efforts to increase activity at the airport are working quite well. This translates to economic development for the airport, Lafayette and Acadiana.  I would expect that this upward trend will continue in 2008 and we are committed to do the things we need to do to make that happen.  I congratulate the airport and airline staffs on a job well done and thank the travelers of Acadiana for their unprecedented support of one of their community’s most valuable assets.” 

Jim Nunn, vice chairman of the Lafayette Airport Commission, points out continuous improvements made at the airport make flying Lafayette attractive to passengers and air carriers.  “We made some major capital improvement projects in 2007 and some will continue into 2008,” he says.  “We began construction on taxiway Bravo, installed new taxi lights for aircraft, began renovations on our restrooms, installed a new public address system and FlightView^® flight tracking system and opened a new fire station with the latest fire truck and firefighting equipment – all with money derived in part from fees paid by airline passengers.”