Airport prepares for increase in passengers amid spring break

EL PASO, Texas– Spring break travel has begun for many in the Borderland.

According to a survey done by Vacasa, a vacation rental company, almost 40 percent of Americans are planning to travel during spring break. That's up 29 percent from those who said they were traveling in 2021.

Cassandra Davisson, Marketing and Customer Relations Coordinator at El Paso International Airport, said that the airport had seen a 109 percent increase since December.

Davisson said that following the trends they saw last year, they expect people to come back for their spring break travel.

To prepare, she said the airport has safety measures in place, like around-the-clock cleaning efforts and disinfecting units.

She said the federal mask mandate is still in effect, and passengers should remember to bring their masks when boarding.

Davisson also reminds flyers to arrive two hours before departure time and to remember to bring the proper form of ID so that the TSA process can be faster for everybody.

The more people fly, the more opportunities for El Pasoans, said Davisson.

"Basically, if people are flying the flights that we have then it's a really good opportunity for the airlines to come in and give us more flights and more frequency to the destinations that El Pasoans need, so its very exciting for us to see that demand come back," she said.

On March 10, the U.S. extended the airplane mask mandate through April 18.