Traffic at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International is on the upswing.

Passenger numbers at the airport are up 2.6 percent for the first half of this year over 2009.

"We've been having year-over-year gains for the past several months," says airport spokeswoman Michelle Wilcut.

"Early on in the year we had some down months, but we've been having positive months for the past four or five months," she says.

The airport just posted two straight year-over-year gains in passengers in June and July.

Southwest Airlines leads all airlines at Louis Armstrong in the number of passengers, and its numbers were up in both June and July.

 

Frontier Airlines had 2,266 passengers in June, its first month of service since returning to New Orleans post-Katrina, while Midwest Airlines saw a 146.66 percent increase over its first month of operation in May.

Through the first half of the year, 4.09 million passengers used the facility, compared with 3.98 million last year.

And Wilcut expects an uptick in traffic to begin this October.

"We're really looking forward to the fall. We think it's going to be a great fall. We've got more capacity coming, when you look at the airline schedules." she says.

"We've had announcements by both Southwest and AirTran about additional service and new cities, so it is looking like a very positive fall season," says Wilcut.

"We've spoken with several of the airlines over the past several months, and they're very pleased with their service."