The number of passengers traveling through Los Angeles International Airport rose 6.5 percent during the first half of the year when compared with the same period in 2013, airport officials reported today.
Los Angeles World Airports tallied 34.3 million passengers during the first six months of 2014, compared with 32.2 million in the year-ago period.
The number of international passengers was up by 9 percent, from 8.5 million to 9.3 million. Domestic passenger volume increased by 5.6 percent — from 23.7 million to 25.1 million.
Airport officials said the increase was driven by an improving economy and additional service on existing routes to Hong Kong, Moscow, Seoul and Sao Paulo.
New routes also were introduced, with Etihad Airways debuting service to Abu Dhabi, SAUDIA starting service to Jeddah-Riyadh and Norwegian Air beginning flights to London/Gatwick, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo.
For the month of June, domestic traffic at LAX rose 5.7 percent to 4.8 million passengers, from 4.5 million in June 2014. International traffic increased 9.4 percent to 1.8 million passengers from 1.6 million a year ago.
According to airport officials, June was the 10th month in a row of increasing passenger volume.
Cargo volume, meanwhile, hovered at the same level during the first half of the year, compared with the same period last year, inching up to 951,772 tons from 950,783 tons. Air mail volume fell 1.3 percent to 35,613 tons from the 36,115 tons that moved last year.
Freight volume saw a small increase, rising 0.16 percent to 916,159 tons, compared with 914,668 tons last year.
