Miami International Airport (MIA) ended 2013 by reaching the 40-million passenger mark for the first time in the airport’s 85-year history and setting a new record for annual passengers for the fourth year in a row. Preliminary numbers show that the watershed moment for MIA came on Friday, December 27, just five days before the end of the year. Since 2010, when MIA hit the 35.7 million passenger mark for the first time, annual passenger traffic at the airport has increased by more than 12 percent.
Since December 1, more than 3.1 million passengers have travelled through MIA, including a new single-day record of 139,940 passengers set on December 21.
MIA continued to expand internationally with seven new foreign destinations in 2013: Guadeloupe, Martinique, Cozumel, Milan, Curitiba and Porto Alegre, all by American Airlines; and Calgary by Canadian carrier WestJet. MIA’s global route network will expand further with three new route launches scheduled in the first six months of 2014: Belem, Brazil; Brussels, Belgium; and Doha, Qatar.
Vote on your favorite MIA photo on the Miami International Airport Facebook page. Here is one of the entries:
What do 40 million passengers look like? The following facts offer some perspective:
In 2013, MIA moved the equivalent of Argentina’s entire population – or the combined populations of Florida and New York.
The Miami Heat would have to sell out every single regular season home game at the 19,600-seat American Airlines Arena for the next 50 years in order to match MIA’s 2013 passenger total.
Congratulations to the Miami Dade Aviation Department (MDAD) and the airlines serving MIA.
Video: Miam Aviation History 1920s to 1980s:
Bottom Copyright Photo: Bruce Drum (all others by MDAD). Miami International Airport’s well known MIA airport code embraces the initials of the airport and the first three letters of the city of Miami, a very unique combination in airport codes.
