Balloon Fiesta opens today and runs through Oct. 11. October has been the Albuquerque Sunport’s busiest month every year from 2022 through 2025, a Ledger review of the airport’s own passenger counts found, ahead of the summer travel months each time.
Last October about 536,000 passengers flew in or out. That is about 68,000 more than in September, or roughly 2,200 more people every day of the month.
The airport’s counts do not say why anyone flew. The Fiesta’s own survey points one way: in the study it published on its 2024 event, 58% of guests named the Fiesta as their top reason for coming to the area.
What the Fiesta says it is worth
The same study, by Forward Analytics, a firm that has worked with the Fiesta since 2009, estimates that guests spent $45.48 million on places to stay during the 2024 event. It puts what that stay brought Albuquerque at $2.73 million in lodgers’ tax and hospitality fees. Those are the Fiesta’s estimates, built from interviews with guests, not the city’s tax receipts. The only monthly hotel-tax summary the Ledger found on the city’s website covers 2016 and early 2017, so the Ledger could not check the estimate against what the city actually took in.
A smaller October last year
Fiesta month still led the year in 2025, but it shrank. Last October’s count was 4.4% below October 2024’s, when about 561,000 passengers came through.
The slide has kept going. This July the airport counted 5.3% fewer passengers than the July before, and this August 6.8% fewer. The airport’s count for this October will show whether Fiesta month held its place.
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