Lake Charles Regional Airport expects busy holiday season

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - Businesses hit hard by the pandemic are looking forward to the holiday season and their busiest time of the year.

”Calcasieu Parish schools were out Monday and Tuesday, and we saw a definite spike in passenger numbers,” said executive director, Heath Allen.

The holidays are the busiest time of year for travel, and Lake Charles Regional Airport expects a sky-high demand this season.

“We’re expecting the same pretty robust travel season for Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Allen said.

Local schools were out for fall break this past weekend. During the four day break, the airport saw an increase in sales, which left their parking lots full and their ticket availability limited.

“We saw an increase at about 20 to 23% I think is where we were at in terms of daily passenger averages over those days, and again that was over 2019. We are like 280% above 2020,” Allen said.

As Lake Charles Regional nears completion on hurricane repairs, Allen explains that the airport is making improvements to better serve passengers including additional terminal gates and expansion on the overflowing parking lot.

“So, we’ll be looking at different things moving forward to expand parking, and such improvements like that, that will help passengers,” Allen said.

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