RSW named fastest growing airport in the country

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Southwest Florida international airport (RSW) is breaking records after being named the fastest growing airport in the country. 

“RSW certainly has been a beneficiary of a lot of traffic coming into this market here in the past several months. A lot of it has to do with just who we are. We are a beautiful state, with beautiful beaches and wonderful places to visit and the airlines have recognized that and obviously the people want to come here,” said Port authority executive director, Ben Siegel. 

Back in March, RSW had 1,162,342 passengers, which is 35 percent higher than last year and an increase of 60.2 percent compared to February 2021. 

“We started seeing the activity growth starting coming in really in February. This time a year we typically start slowing down, but we’re not seeing that slow down that we typically see after Easter. We’re seeing this summer as many as three million additional seats coming into this market over the next several months and that is really leading the country in terms of the number of additional seats coming into a market, no other airport is seeing that type of increases, so it’s pretty exciting for us,” said Siegel. 

With more people flying in and out of RSW, port authority officials have started thinking ahead and have plans to expand in the future. 

 “We have terminal expansion plan that is fully designed right now we’re bidding the project with our project manager and plan to break ground inside this terminal later this year in the fall. The 3 year project will be adding 200,000 square feet of terminal space that will improve the offerings in food, beverage and retail. It will consolidate all of our checkpoints into one central location, so now as a guest when you come through a terminal — you will be screened in a central location and you will be able to go anywhere once you go through security meaning any concourse or gate you want and really explore the terminal on a post-security basis as opposed to being confined to one concourse,” said Siegel. 

The post RSW named fastest growing airport in the country appeared first on NBC2 News.

NBC2 Fort Myers