Major Houston airport lands on list of hardest hit during the pandemic

BySteven Devadanam CultureMap logo
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Bush Intercontinental has seen a massive drop in travelers since the pandemic. Photo courtesy of Houston CultureMap/Houston Airport System
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Since the World Health Organization announced the COVID-19 as a global pandemic on March 11, few industries have slowed as dramatically as air travel. Airlines made massive cuts in services and jockeyed for government assistance. Some, such as United, announced furloughs of up to 45 percent of its U.S. based workers, some 36,000 employees.

Local airports such as George Bush Intercontinental witnessed a staggering drop in travelers.

Just how bad is the hit? Finance website FinanceBuzz crunched the numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation to determine the pandemic's effect on the 30 busiest airports in the nation. The site examined the number of departing passengers on domestic flights from June 2019 and compared them to June of this year.

For more on this story, continue reading from our ABC13 partners at Houston CultureMap.