Record-breaking year of travelers for Pensacola International Airport, how the Air Services Team plans to meet demand

PENSACOLA, Fla. ( WKRG ) — After a record-breaking year, the Pensacola International Airport is the largest airport between Jacksonville and New Orleans, with over 3 million passengers in the 2024 fiscal year.

Over the last 10 years, Pensacola International Airport has seen a 104% growth of travelers and flights combined.

In 2024, roughly 58,000 passengers have traveled through the airport a week, a number that is just short of the Pensacola population.

The passenger demand that the airport sees in 2024 is projected to not grow as rapidly until 2035. With that, the Pensacola Airport now needs to plan for a $70 million expansion in a few areas.

Pensacola International Airport Director Matt Coughlin said his team wants to grow on every level of the airport, from gate expansion to new parking lots.

The current gates at the Pensacola airport were designed for smaller aircraft, but with an increase in travelers, larger planes are now needed.

“There’s a lot of compression taking place down in the concourse,” Coughlin said. “That being said, those numbers, we have to grow that capacity with new gates that can handle those larger aircraft.”

He added, “It’s going to start with that concourse, potentially a new parking structure, garage, and we’re currently building parking facilities, but we’re going to have to continue to build.”

Pensacola International Airport saw nearly a 400,000 passenger increase between the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years. Coughlin believes that the charm of Pensacola has helped to bring folks to visit.

“I would think, you know, people have discovered the Gulf Coast here,” Coughlin said. “And we talked about the diverse nature of the economy here, whether that’s leisure travel or business, where we very evenly spread between those two legs of the stool.”

While plans for the airport’s expansion are currently in the design phase, Coughlin expects his team will break ground in July 2025 to begin the project.

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