Air travel at Santa Barbara Airport taking off to pandemic highs

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Passengers are returning to the friendly skies. Santa Barbara Airport’s (SBA) business development manager, Deanna Zachrisson, said Mother’s Day Weekend was the busiest since the start of the pandemic.

At its slowest, Zachrisson said SBA saw 26 passengers on April 20, 2020. Mother’s Day Weekend 1,500 passengers came through SBA. And the airport is only expecting to be busier this summer.

Zachrisson said new flights are coming through SBA. On May 8 and 9, American Airlines' first weekend flights to Chicago O’Hare Airport started. On June 6 United Airlines will start daily service to Chicago. And then on June 17, Alaska Airlines will start flying to San Diego. 

“In addition, we have several of the airlines that are bringing back the larger airplanes,” said Zachrisson. “The Boeing and the Airbus airplanes that seat more passengers. So we’re definitely going to see a significant uptick in passengers in June. And we might actually see something that looks like a normal summer.”