For the 2nd quarter of 2021, there were a total of 1,337,161 inbound passengers at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (LMM) and 1,334,199 outbound passengers. Compared to the previous quarter, there was an increase of 49.8% in inbound traffic and of 52.8% in outbound traffic.
Since 2020 was an outlier in terms of traffic due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a better comparison would be with 2019. Compared to the 2nd quarter of 2019, inbound traffic increased by 11.8% while outbound traffic increased by 9.3%. The 2nd quarter of 2021 had the highest traffic at LMM in the past 6 years. Puerto Rico’s DMO has ramped up its marketing efforts in the past 2 years and they have resulted in airport traffic 20% higher than average.
Inbound traffic at LMM for the year to date totaled 2.22 million, while outbound traffic was 2.206 million. Compared to 2019, inbound traffic is down 5% while outbound traffic is down 6.87%. Overall, migration away from the island has slowed. There were 22,311 more arrivals than departures during the first half of 2021.
Overall, airport traffic statistics for the first half of the year indicate that the tourism industry is recovering and that migration away from the island has slowed down. With increasing vaccination rates on the island and relaxed COVID restrictions, we can expect this tendency to hold for the 3rd quarter.
