Airline passenger traffic in January at Hector International Airport showed an increase as compared to the same month in 2008.  In January 2009, the passenger enplanements were 26,532.  This is an increase of 5.4% when compared to the January 2008 passenger enplanements of 25,176.  Total passenger count for the month was 51,606, which is up 6.6% over the same period last year.

January 2009 was the busiest January on record in terms of enplaned and total passengers.

In January 2008, Northwest Airlines operated eight daily flights to Minneapolis with Airbus A319/320, EMB-175, CRJ900 and CRJ200 aircraft.  United Express operated four daily flights to Chicago and three daily flights to Denver with the Canadair CRJ200 and CRJ700.  Allegiant Air operates two-weekly flights to Las Vegas, three-weekly flights to Phoenix/Mesa and two-weekly flights to Orlando-Sanford utilizing the McDonnell Douglas MD-83.  Frontier Airlines operates twice-daily service to Denver utilizing the Bombardier Q400 aircraft.

For the month of January, Northwest Airlines had 48% of the market share, United Express at 25%, Allegiant Air at 19%  and Frontier at 8% with a daily average of 1,665 passengers both arriving and departing.

There were 516 air carrier departures in the month of January.