A total of 25,936,343 passengers passed through Denver International Airport during the first six months of 2014, setting a record for the busiest first half of any year since the airport opened 19 years ago.
Record origin and destination traffic, as well as a boom in international passengers fueled the increase, DIA said in a report released Thursday.
In June, for instance, 197,714 international passengers were logged, up 21,592 from 176,122 reported in June 2013.
More than 1.1 million international passengers traveled through Denver in the first six months, the second-highest level of international traffic at DIA ever, according to the report.
Air Canada saw a 12.8 percent increase in DIA passengers year-over-year in June and Icelandair’s traffic increased 10.6 percent increase in the same period.
As far as airline traffic during the first six months, United Airlines, which has 40.83 percent of the market share at DIA, led the way with 10,591,075 passengers. Southwest Airlines, which has the next largest market share at 25.87 percent, had 6,710,737 passengers. Frontier Airlines, with the third largest market share of 18.54 percent, had 4,807,376 during the first six months.
The remainder of passenger traffic was split between American, which has a market share of 5.83 percent; Delta, which has a market share of 4.49 percent; and “other airlines” which have a market share of 4.43 percent.
Other airlines include British Airways, Lufthansa, Icelandair, Great Lakes Aviation, JetBlue and Allegiant Air.
For the month of June, traffic at DIA was up 2.4 percent with 4,830,401 passengers compared with 4,716,309 passengers in June 2013.
The June tally was 32,757 passengers shy of the June record of 4,863,158
travelers set in 2011.
The report noted that in addition, mail, freight and express cargo operations increased slightly in June compared to June 2013. But during the first six months, cargo was down 1 percent compared with the first six months of 2013. Approximately 245,381,726 pounds of cargo were handled in the first six months of 2014, compared to 247,826,626 pounds of cargo during the first six months of 2013.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939, hpankratz@denverpost.com or twitter.com/howardpankratz
