Colorado bucks air travel trends

Unlike most of the country, Colorado was one of the few places in the U.S. where the number of scheduled flights departing in January 2022 will outpace pre-pandemic levels.

Details: Outbound flights here jumped by 3 percentage points compared to January 2019, according to recent data from Airlines for America, which advocates for U.S. airlines.

Yes, but: Denver International Airport officials anticipate a 5% drop in projected passengers from Dec. 20 through Jan. 3 compared to the same time period in 2019.

• That still equates to more than 2.7 million people traveling through the terminals.

Why it matters: The airline industry's financial fate is strongly tied to the waves of the pandemic, Axios' Andrew Freedman writes.

The big picture: A look at passenger air traffic statistics nationwide shows improvement compared to the worst of the pandemic's first wave.

• But business travel, a major revenue driver for airlines, is still down nationally compared to pre-pandemic days.

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