More than 1.2 million people traveled through Huntsville International Airport in 2022, an increase of almost 28% over the previous year.

It was also the airport’s second busiest year since 2011, signaling things were getting back to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic. Only 2019 was a busier year in that time, with a record 1.4 million passengers traveling through the airport before the pandemic hit.

“The number one thing for me would be the relaxation of the Covid restrictions,” Huntsville International Airport CEO Butch Roberts said. “We had a lot of pent-up people who wanted to travel. We had a lot of people doing business and leisure at the same time.”

Leisure travel in particular helped boost the airport’s numbers, Roberts said. Before the pandemic, roughly 70% of passengers at the airport were business travelers because of government work with NASA and Redstone Arsenal’s presence here.

“We’ve been doing surveys, right now we’re running about 50-50, with leisure picking up, which is a good thing,” Roberts said.