ONT predicts a strong July

Flights at Ontario International Airport next month are expected to reach 90 percent of the level they reached in July 2019.

Four hundred and thirty-seven flights are expected to depart per week next month, 87.4 percent of the weekly departures recorded in July 2019, according to a statement on the airport’s website.

There will be more than 64,000 seats on next month’s flights,  which would be 90.8 percent of the seats on the departing flights exactly two years earlier. Both estimates are based on current flight schedules.

If those predictions are accurate, it will be another sign that the airport, which took a major hit during the worst of the pandemic last year, is returning to normal operations.

The airport starts it’s 2021-’22 fiscal year Thursday with an operating budget of $73.3 million. Landing fees for passenger airlines will be $1.71 per thousand pounds of landed weight, down from $1.84 in the fiscal year 2021 and $1.98 in the fiscal year 2020, before the pandemic hit.

“Since the transition to local control in 2016, we have taken the steps necessary to create a first-rate aviation gateway,” said Alan D. Wapner, president of the airport board of commissioners and Ontario’s mayor pro tem, in the statement. “Despite the impact of the pandemic,  Ontario International is well-positioned to resume its pre-pandemic position as one of the fastest-growing airports in the United States.”