Author: Brian Sprenger

2023 Enplanement Projection
March 1, 2023

Quick Notes
BZN projected to enplane a record 1,188,050 passengers in 2023, up 4.7% over 2022. Total passengers (enplaned + deplaned) are expected to surpass 2.3 million.
As the BZN market matures, significant new airline service becomes less likely since BZN has service by all six of the nations largest airlines and has non-stop service to all twenty of our top 20 markets. Future service additions will likely be seasonal and /or less than daily.
BZN has non-stop service to 22 destinations throughout the United States of which 9 operate seasonally.

Based on current projections, we anticipate that BZN will enplane approximately 1,188,050 passengers in 2023 which would be another record. The projected 4.7% growth represents an increase of 52,369 enplanements over the previous annual record set in 2022.
Calendar year 2022 enplanements surpassed the previous record set in 2021 by 161,982 passengers. The increase was due to several factors including continued strong demand for travel to more remote areas of the country, and population growth in Southwest Montana. While some of the experimental markets of 2021 did not operate in 2022, several continued including Washington, DC, San Diego and Austin. Overall, there was a maturing in the market after absorbing the significant growth from 2021 which included the addition of Southwest Airlines.
Factors that will positively impact BZN in 2023 include continued population growth but we anticipate that inbound travel demand growth will stabilize as the market continues to absorb the increases of 2021 and 2022 along with the unknown impacts of higher inflation and risk of recession. We do not expect to see additional airlines in the market during 2023 (with one possible exception) and at most one returning destination due to the continuing pilot shortage and retirements of smaller regional jet aircraft nationwide. That being said, we are cautiously optimistic that BZN will perform better than many other markets throughout the Nation and maintain our position handling more than 40% of passengers traveling to or from Montana. We hope these projections by airport management will give some guidance for calendar year 2023 expectations, however, all projections are based on the information available as of March 2, 2023 and could change throughout the year.

BZN historical and projected passenger enplanements 2018—2023

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year	Increase
2018	50,376	48,223	59,660	38,893	39,761	62,736	81,875	81,036	61,722	48,628	41,730	56,283	670,923	11.8%
2019	60,548	60,446	74,922	46,114	53,460	77,552	95,303	89,169	68,326	53,743	41,412	64,711	785,706	17.1%
2020	69,158	71,075	47,266	1,417	5,753	17,229	42,118	49,940	43,995	36,654	26,101	35,603	446,309	(43.2%)
2021	44,605	49,351	68,033	50,622	63,263	108,679	138,920	132,109	98,287	81,386	59,054	79,390	973,699	118.2%
2022	83,551	84,977	105,959	71,578	79,383	109,698	128,371	130,033	103,482	87,449	66,606	84,594	1,135,681	16.6%
2023 (Low)	91,699	88,472	106,463	72,005	80,101	111,378	126,532	131,068	106,741	89,322	68,100	88,779	1,160,660	2.2%
2023 (Projection)	91,699	92,258	107,826	72,809	80,555	114,426	127,269	131,779	112,553	93,102	71,699	92,075	1,188,050	4.7%
2023 (High)	91,699	93,016	109,479	74,027	82,341	116,868	130,987	133,784	113,544	93,996	72,837	93,027	1,205,605	6.2%

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