Phoenix airport just added a slate of new international flights. What's behind the boom?
People are fulfilling their spirit of wanderlust after the COVID-19 pandemic. More people than ever are planning international vacations, yearning to see the world after years of lockdowns and restrictions.
Airlines in Phoenix are stepping up to meet the demand, with Canadian ultra-low-cost carriers Lynx Air and Flair Airlines recently introducing new Canadian routes and American Airlines planning to launch service to Tijuana in February 2024.
Airlines are also upgrading planes on existing routes. Condor Airlines, which expanded its Phoenix flights to Frankfurt, Germany, from twice weekly to thrice weekly for the 2023 season, will operate new planes in 2024 that can carry 51 more passengers than the planes it flew in previous seasons.
The new routes and service upgrades at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport are occurring as more travelers nationwide and locally are taking international vacations.
From January to August 2023, Sky Harbor had more than 1.6 million international travelers. That's an increase from more than 1.3 million passengers during the same period in 2022 and more than 1.4 million passengers in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Why the Phoenix airport is adding international flights
The new Canada and Mexico flights from Phoenix coincide with greater nationwide interest in international travel.
Industry trade group Airlines for America stated in a recent report that ticket sales for U.S.-international itineraries are outpacing domestic travel sales. Tickets for international flights in 2023 are up 10% from 2019.
Some destinations are seeing more travelers now than before the pandemic. One of them is Mexico, where 8.3 million U.S. citizens flew from January to July 2023, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office's U.S. International Air Passenger Statistics Report.
That's up from about 6.5 million from January to July 2022, and about 6.3 million from the same seven-month period in 2019.
Steve and Paul Glenn of the Nebraska-based travel management company Executive Travel highlighted the growth in international ticket sales on a podcast about travel industry trends. Steve Glenn, company founder and chairman of the board, was surprised by the size of the increase in international ticket sales.
Paul Glenn, the company's CEO, thinks it's because travelers want to see the world again following years of COVID-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions.
"When you're contained to your local area for so long, I think that made a lot of people recognize they want to explore," he said on the podcast.
"They want to get out and see and experience other cultures and other destinations ... And they want to take advantage of the opportunity to explore, because they realize there may be times where you're not able to do some of these things."
International flights are 'an economic engine' for Phoenix
The latest numbers from Airlines for America emphasize how travel outside the U.S. is growing in popularity.
AAA Travel said international travel this year increased 200% from 2022 based on its booking data, and airfares were about 30% more expensive than in 2022.
It found Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary were among the most popular international cities.
The Arizona Republic found it was hardest to find mid-tier seats, a step above basic economy but below first or business class, on international itineraries to and from Phoenix this summer.
Another sign of the increasing demand: The U.S. Department of State handled record volumes of passport applications. It issued more than 24 million passports from October 2022 to September 2023. The backlog proved so overwhelming that the department increased processing times to 10-13 weeks for standard service.
The appetite for international flights is paying off.
During the launch of Lynx Air's Phoenix-Toronto flights at Sky Harbor, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said the economic impact of the new route will be $26.4 million each year.
"International nonstop flights are such an economic engine for us, and it really helps us be more connected to great markets like Toronto, the financial capital (of Canada) as well as a great place to have a vacation," she said.
American Airlines, which operates about 40% of Sky Harbor's flight capacity including 13 international routes, stated in its most recent financial report that demand for international flights played a part in record revenues of $14.1 billion from April to June 2023.
Companywide revenues from international passengers were about $6.8 billion from January to June 2023, up 41% from $4.8 billion during the same period in 2022, the report stated.
What's next?
Sky Harbor staff is working with airlines to land more long-haul international routes, said Alexandria Van Haren, the airport's air service development manager.
Because the airport has few flights to Europe, staff is "very excited" that American Airlines and British Airways' London routes and Condor Airlines' Frankfurt routes will continue in 2024. Condor operating its Phoenix flights with a newer, bigger plane is a positive step because it will "provide the most premium seats ever" for the route, Van Haren said.
Sky Harbor is also working to attract a carrier that will link Phoenix with Asia, a prospect that holds promise after a series of charter flights between Phoenix and Taipei, Taiwan, for training employees of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which is building a plant in north Phoenix.
One challenge they have to work through is how Asian carriers may take longer to reinstate their flight networks after the COVID-19 pandemic because of aircraft storage and recertifying pilots, Van Haren said.
"Nonstop Asia air service has been and continues to be a top priority," she said. "Phoenix’s historical Asia traffic and the growth of business ties have been very attractive to airlines. (Sky Harbor) continues to meet with both Asian and European carriers and has had very positive discussions."
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why airlines launched more international flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor
