TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa International Airport is not expecting to break any passenger records during the usually busy summer travel season.
Airport leaders project passenger traffic will decline compared to the last few summer seasons, making it one of the slowest the airport has experienced since 2022. The summer season runs from Memorial Day weekend to mid-August, when students return to school.
Tampa International Airport is seeing about 18 fewer departing flights out of around 237 flights per day this summer as compared to last, which is a decrease of approximately 7.7%, a spokesperson said.
The slowdown is not being blamed on a lack of demand from travelers, but rather on a reduction in available flights.
“Fourteen of those flights were from Spirit Airlines, while the remaining reductions are due to airlines adjusting their schedules,” TPA Communications Manager Beau Zimmer said in a statement. “For example, operating a certain route five days a week instead of seven. Despite the slightly lower number of flights, aircraft this summer are projected to carry more passengers on average.”
Airport officials expect to see approximately 65,000 passengers per day this summer. That figure is down from the more than 70,000 daily passengers the airport routinely handled during the summers of 2024 and 2025.
Tampa-based commercial airline pilot Jim Shilling said rising fuel costs are playing a major role in the industry’s decisions to trim routes.
“That means the less profitable runs with high fuel prices get cut, so there’s fewer airline seats being flown because the fuel prices are high,” Shilling said.
Despite the reductions, Shilling said many flights departing from Tampa International are still operating at or near capacity. Airlines are increasingly relying on larger aircraft while reducing the number of daily flights in order to lower fuel expenses, Shilling said.
“It can be more profitable to fly very big airplanes shorter distances than it is to fly smaller airplanes multiple times,” he said.
Several major carriers, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines, are reducing the number of weekly routes they offer across their network.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said the airline’s schedule reductions are expected to continue through at least the second and third quarters of 2026. United is also leaning into more overnight “redeye” flights and flights scheduled on typically slower days like Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.
“If prices stayed at this level, it would mean an extra $11 billion in annual expense just for jet fuel,” Kirby said in a statement. “For perspective, in United’s best year ever, we made less than $5 billion.”
Shilling said current travel data still points to strong consumer demand, despite the schedule reductions.
“Most of the data is going to suggest that flights are full and people still want to travel,” he said. “But there’s still a lot going on.”
