JOPLIN, Mo. — The Joplin Regional Airport is seeing passenger numbers rise after some rocky months earlier in the year.

Steve Stockam, Joplin Airport Manager, said, “A lot of things have happened in a year – and what we know last year we don’t know this year.”

From nearly 100,000 passengers in 2019 to just a fraction of that last Spring, travel trends have changed dramatically at the Joplin Regional Airport.

“They bottomed out in the May – June timeframe; but since July they’ve really picked back up and we’ve been pretty strong – again, folks are kind of tired of being shut up.”

Airport Manager Steve Stockam says the monthly count is almost 4,000 per month. But who’s travelling is different.

“The makeup of our traffic has totally changed. We were 90% business travel a year ago; right now it’s 70% leisure because business markets haven’t opened up yet. They’re keeping folks home and not allowing them to travel.”

He’s optimistic that could change in the coming weeks.

“Hearing a lot of people say their business and industry want to open things back up and begin traveling after the first of the year – and we’re hoping that will be the case.”