Airport Forecasting No Passenger Growth in 2026

Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. Image from the airport.

Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport is experiencing a slowdown in commercial air traffic.

The county-owned airport is revising its short-term projections for passenger traffic in light of declining demand. The lower passenger numbers recorded at Milwaukee Mitchell are emblematic of a nationwide dip in air travel. Major carriers began revising their earnings projections this spring in response to lower demand.

“We have seen a slowdown in traffic due to a variety of different factors,” Airport Director Brian Dranzik told the Milwaukee County Board’s Committee on Finance Monday. “And so we are reforecasting our [passenger] data going into the rest of this year and thereafter.”

Last year at this time, the airport expected commercial air traffic would continue growing in 2025 and surpass pre-pandemic traffic numbers. Instead, the airport is lowering its traffic expectations for 2025 by approximately 318,000 passengers. The traffic forecast for 2026 indicates that the airport anticipates demand to remain relatively stable, with a 0.1% decline.

In 2019, more than 6.8 million passengers traveled through Milwaukee Mitchell. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a 62% drop in air traffic the following year, but, since 2021, passengers have steadily returned.

The airport believes economic trends are cooling consumer interest in travel, and despite growing passenger traffic last year, there was already a sign of softening demand: 20% of all seats provided on flights out of Milwaukee Mitchell went unfilled.

“This high percentage of unfilled seats indicates a slowing of passenger demand for travel,” the airport reported in its 2026 budget narrative.

To explain the slowing demand, Milwaukee Mitchell points to macroeconomic trends including “softening Gross Domestic Product (GDP), stubborn inflation rates, diminished consumer confidence, higher airfare, increasing employment concerns, and widespread global trade tensions.”

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