The TPD also reported that DCA had a 33% share of the region’s passenger enplanements for the full-year 2023.
Business travel has noticeably declined at Washington-area airports post-pandemic, while leisure traffic has jumped, according to the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB).
The TPB released results of a comprehensive survey it conducted of passengers using Washington Dulles (IAD), Reagan Washington National (DCA) and Baltimore/Washington Marshall (BWI) airports, revealing a shift in air travel habits compared to before the pandemic with more passengers now taking vacation trips than business trips.
The survey was the first of Washington-area passengers the organization has conducted since the pandemic. The TPD has conducted similar surveys in the past, providing a comparison of results before and after the pandemic.
The survey was conducted over two weeks in October 2023, with 9,599 passengers from 486 flights giving responses, divided roughly evenly among the three airports.
“As might be expected, the region has experienced a decline in business travel due to the pandemic and post-pandemic factors,” the TBD reported. “In 2017, 38% of surveyed trips were for business-related purposes, dropping to 30% in 2023.”
Non-business trips rose from 62% in 2017 to 70% in 2023. Among non-business trips, personal, family and student travel remained largely unchanged compared to 2017, but vacation trips increased from 24% to 36% of total trips, meaning vacations have clearly eclipsed business trips. The survey revealed “a surge in post-pandemic vacation travel,” the TPD said. In 2017, business trips outpaced vacation trips 38% to 24%, but that has now flipped to vacations leading business trips 36% to 30%.
More Rideshares
Another notable change is passengers' increased use of rideshare services such as Uber and Lyft to transit to airports. Personal cars and rental cars represented 45% and 10% of trips to the airports, respectively, in 2023, just slightly below 2017. But rideshare services accounted for more than a quarter of trips to the airports in 2023, jumping from 14% in 2017 to 26% in 2023. Traditional taxicab trips to the airports were more than cut in half, falling from 11% in 2017 to 5% in 2023.
At DCA, 37% of surveyed passengers used rideshare services to make their way to the airport in 2023, up from 21% in 2017.
“Private cars are the primary choice of travel mode for home locations, while [rideshare services] dominate trips from non-home locations,” the TPB said.
When choosing from which of the three airports to fly, 45% of respondents said proximity was the primary factor, as they selected the closest of the three airports, by far the highest of the top three reasons. Airfare price was the most important consideration for 12% of passengers, while another 12% said they chose a specific airport because it offered a nonstop route rather than a connecting flight.
“The largest share of air passengers chose their airport because it was the closest airport, especially for DCA passengers [53%],” the TPD said.
The TPD noted the three airports had nearly identical shares of the region’s passenger enplanements for the full-year 2023, with BWI at 34%, DCA at 33% and IAD at 32%.
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