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The Houston Airport System (HAS) handled 61.9 million passengers in the 12 months ending May ’26. That represents a slight 0.9 percent decrease from the 62.5 million handled a year earlier, but a continued improvement over pre-pandemic levels of travel. Domestic and international travel accounted for 48.8 million and 13.1 million passengers, respectively. This most recent release represents the first system traffic update since February and incorporates data for March, April, and May.

Monthly passenger traffic in May was down 2.3 percent from a year earlier. Domestic travel decreased 1.2 percent to 4.3 million passengers, and international travel fell 6.1 percent to 1.1 million. William P. Hobby Airport experienced a larger relative decrease in passengers than George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH).

Three new service routes to international destinations were recently announced. United Airlines will launch a nonstop route from IAH to Cartagena, Colombia starting on December 17, as well as restore its nonstop service to Caracas, Venezuela, on August 11 for the first time in nearly a decade.  ITA Airways, Italy’s flag carrier, recently began nonstop flights between IAH and Rome, Italy with the first flight arriving in Houston on May 1.

Spirit Airlines ceased operations at IAH on May 2, cancelling all flights and customer service, but other carriers at IAH serve destinations similar to Sprit’s network, limiting the impact on available routes. For more news, visit fly2houston.com.

 

Prepared by Greater Houston Partnership Research

 

Miles Nicchio
Research Intern
Greater Houston Partnership
mnicchio@houston.org

Colin Baker
Director of Economic Research
Greater Houston Partnership
bakerc@houston.org