Definition
The total number of revenue passengers who board aircraft at an airport during a calendar year, used by the FAA as a measure of airport activity and as a basis for classifying airports into categories such as primary, commercial service, and general aviation.
Plain English
The count of paying passengers who get on planes at a given airport over a year. The FAA uses this number to decide what kind of airport it is and how much federal funding it can receive.
Context Anchor
Seen in airport-category discussions when the FAA describes how airports are grouped by the amount of passenger activity they handle.
Why Pilots Care
Passenger boardings determine an airport's FAA category, which affects the services, funding, and infrastructure available there. Knowing the category helps a pilot anticipate what to expect at a destination — from runway length to available approaches.
Intuition Check
Passenger boardings does not mean everyone who enters the terminal, and it does not mean arrivals plus departures. In this FAA context, it means passengers counted when they get on an aircraft at that airport.
Example Sentence 1
An airport must have at least 10,000 passenger boardings per year to be classified as a primary airport.
Example Sentence 2
The tower manager reviewed the latest passenger boardings data before requesting additional instrument approach procedures.