July is always the single busiest month of the year for passenger travel at Washington Dulles International Airport, but July this year was even busier than usual. Passenger traffic reached almost 2.3 million travellers in July, which was 2.2% above traffic in July of last year, and was the highest passenger count in any month since August of 2005 (

data here

), almost five years ago (see chart above). Compared to last year, both domestic and international traffic rebounded by more than 2% in July.

Freight volume at Dulles Airport was also up in July, by almost 18% above last year, with more than 25 tons of cargo passing through Washington's international airport.

The gains in July follow similar gains in June (2.8% growth in passengers, 24% growth in freight) and May (3.8% growth in passengers, 26.6% growth in freight). Over the last 12 months from August 2009 to July 2009, passenger traffic is up by about 1%, with international traffic growth (2.5%) ahead of domestic traffic growth (0.30%), and freight cargo is up by 13% over that period.