Due to increasing passenger numbers, Milwaukee Mitchell Airport now offers flights to the Caribbean
Families gather with their loved ones for the holidays
The day before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest days of the year for General Mitchell International Airport as families reunite for the holidays.
Carrie Mahone, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
After a successful spring, things went well again this summer at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.
Monthly traveler numbers continue to exceed last year’s numbers, and the airport plans to add two seasonal international flights to the Caribbean in time for the winter chill.
In the first six months of 2024, the airport served 3,158,314 travelers – 10.91% more than in the same period in 2023. In a press release Thursday, the airport said it was “well positioned” to meet its goal of serving 6.3 million passengers by the end of 2024.
“It’s great news that more people are choosing MKE for their air travel,” Harold Mester, the airport’s director of public affairs and marketing, wrote in an email to the Journal Sentinel. “Airlines choose where their planes fly. The more we all choose MKE, the easier it is for airlines to add more flights. Airlines have added more services this year, giving travelers more options to fly to more places. That’s why we all need to fly from our home airport.”
The airport had just over six million passengers in 2023, evidence that travel was finally recovering after the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019 and before, the airport had between 6.5 and 7 million passengers annually; in 2020, that number dropped to 2.63 million.
In every month this year, Mitchell recorded “significant growth” in monthly passenger numbers compared to 2023:
- January: 5.5% increase
- February: 16% increase
- March: 14% increase
- April: 7.7% increase
- May: Increase of 9.7%
- June: Increase of 12.2%
Airlines serving MKE offered about 60,000 additional seats for flights to spring break destinations in March of this year — 19% more than in March 2023, the airport reported. In fact, so many travelers flew out of Milwaukee during spring break that the airport’s roughly 12,000 parking spaces were at times about 98% full.
The airport began offering year-round nonstop flights to Kansas City and Salt Lake City in the first half of 2023. This summer, it also offered seasonal flights to San Diego and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., Mester said. However, the Raleigh-Durham service was discontinued after just a few months when Frontier Airlines canceled numerous routes across the country, and the San Diego service is no longer listed online in the airport’s destination list.
Mitchell also recently added additional flights to existing markets across the country, including Dallas-Fort Worth and Baltimore, Mester said.
Milwaukee Airport is expanding its flight connections to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica this winter
Just in time for the winter holidays, the airport plans to offer two new seasonal flights to tropical destinations with the low-cost airline Sun Country Airlines:
- Nonstop flights to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic will begin on December 26 and run until April 7. Flights will initially operate twice weekly, increasing to four times weekly from January 23.
- Nonstop service to Montego Bay, Jamaica, begins January 25 and will operate twice weekly through April 5.
Sun Country is also expanding its other seasonal flights from Milwaukee during the winter season from mid-December to early April, offering daily service to Cancun, Mexico and nonstop flights to Fort Myers, Florida, Orlando and Phoenix on peak travel days.
Journal Sentinel reporter David Clarey contributed to this report.
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