Courtesty of The Miami Herald/OAG, ranking of U.S. airports by monthly seat capacity in November 2008. I've copied the first 30, the full list is available here: http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/...eport.source.prod_affiliate.56.pdf (PDF file)

Much more useful than what is published all the time by USA Today because it includes international seats.

1) Atlanta - 4,534,704, -2%
2) Chicago - 3,337,126, -13%
3) Los Angeles - 2,820,363, -13%
4) Dallas - 2,810,704, -8%
5) Denver - 2,441,452, -2%
6) New York-JFK - 2,405,723, -5%
7) Las Vegas - 2,092,962, -15%
8) Phoenix - 2,052,507, -12%
9) Houston George Bush - 1,965,300, -8%
10) Charlotte - 1,830,640, -2%
11) San Francisco - 1,786,887, -6%
12) Newark - 1,799,587, -5%
13) Miami - 1,771,474, +4%
14) Orlando - 1,670,835, -11%
15) Detroit - 1,691,209, -8%
16) Philadelphia - 1,657,834, -6%
17) Minneapolis - 1,585,466, -12%
18) Seattle - 1,559,847, -4%
19) LaGuardia - 1,356,896, -10%
20) Boston - 1,345,781, -9%
21) Dulles - 1,177,201, -8%
22) Baltimore - 1,108,933, -9%
23) Fort Lauderdale - 1,082,933, -8%
24) Washington Reagan - 1,043,302, -5%
25) Salt Lake City - 969,442, -13%
26) Chicago Midway - 936,715, -17%
27) San Diego - 927,818, -10%
28) Tampa - 907,697, -11%
29) Honolulu - 869,125, -16%
30) St. Louis - 758,186 -14%

I have also gone through the whole list, and noted some airports that have lost at 20% of their monthly seats. They are:

Allentown -20%
Atlantic City -20%
Bakersfield -48%
Baton Rouge -23%
Bismarck -23%
Bloomington -20%
Champaign -21%
Cincinnati -25%
Daytona Beach -26%
Duluth -37%
Eugene, Ore -24%
Fresno -25%
Jackson Hole -23%
Kalamazoo -24%
Kansas City -23%
Key West -24%
Lansing -32%
Maui -25%
Monterrey -34%
Newburgh/Stewart -63%
Oakland -28%
Ontario -31%
Orlando Sanford -39%
Pasco -23%
Pensacola -20%
Peoria -29%
Rochester -25%
St. Croix -24%
San Juan -27%
San Luis Obispo -42%
Savannah -22%
South Bend -20%
Tallahassee -31%
Tucson - 22%

Airports that have gained at least 20% capacity:

Aspen - +37%
Bellingham +21%
Durango +26%
Grand Junction +36%
Great Falls +20%
Helena +23%
Ithaca +30%
Lawton, OK +70%
Saipan +24%

Laguardia is taking a bigger hit than EWR or JFK, the economic meltdown and the collapse of the Investment banking community is going to take a while to recover. Thankfully there is more to the Region's business community besides Investment banking, as Jim Cramer likes to point out the Pharmaceutical industry is pretty much recession proof.

Quoting MAH4546 (Thread starter): I have also gone through the whole list, and noted some airports that have lost at 20% of their monthly seats. They are:

One you missed - TOL has lost 59%

I wonder how different the list would look if it went by seat/miles?

Great thread, but it appears the Herald can't put things in numerical order.  

Quoting MAH4546 (Thread starter): 11) San Francisco - 1,786,887, -6% 12) Newark - 1,799,587, -5%

Cool stuff though, Mark. Keep it up!

Quoting MAH4546 (Thread starter):

Amazing that all three major New York airports, all three Washington area airports, *and* Philadelphia International airport are on this list. That's a lot of capacity in one relatively small geographic area.

I'm guessing that's because all of these airports are hubs, all offer O&D flights, and all offer connecting traffic to clients.

Quoting MAH4546 (Thread starter):

Atlanta's by far #1. And Miami's the only one tn the top 20 that saw an increase  .

MSY is holding its own. It's the only airport in the top 50 (besides MIA) which has not seen a decrease in seats. Granted, the percentage change was 0, but that's still better than a loss.

Is it accurate to state that hubs/larger airports fared better than smaller ones because they tend to receive more international flights which have seen fewer cuts (and even gained)? There are several threads of Int'l service cuts, though, so it's only a matter of time until those changes are reflected.

Still, very interesting data, and even with the cuts that's still a lot of flights in the air!

Interesting reading, thank you for posting!!

Good for a chuckle in some cases - a couple of airports were up 200+%...Prescott, AZ, and Pullman, WA...well, at least somebody is getting new air service!!

Miami appears to be the only big airport to be growing - up 4%. After that, the next biggest airport NOT to be shrinking is Burlington, VT, which saw a 0% growth.

Seeing the statistics on BFL is still surreal - a metropolitan area approaching 800,000 people, and it has virtually no service. To add an addendum to the old phrase, "...if you build it, they will come...but they won't stay!!"