Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, August 5, 2026 – Puerto Vallarta International Airport handled 484,200 terminal passengers in July, a 12.1% decline from the same month last year, according to GAP’s preliminary July passenger report.
The airport processed 550,600 passengers in July 2025, resulting in approximately 66,400 fewer travelers in July 2026.
The decline was concentrated in international traffic. Puerto Vallarta recorded 160,900 international terminal passengers in July, down 29.8% from 229,100 a year earlier.
Domestic traffic was nearly unchanged. The airport handled 323,300 domestic passengers, up 0.6% from 321,500 in July 2025.
The results contrast with Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico’s broader performance, which operates 12 airports in Mexico. Passenger traffic across that network increased 3.9% in July compared with the same month in 2025.
Guadalajara traffic rose 13.2%, while Tijuana increased 7.2%. Los Cabos, another major leisure destination operated by GAP, recorded a smaller decline of 6.9%.
Puerto Vallarta therefore finished July 16 percentage points below the overall growth rate across GAP’s Mexican airports. The comparison suggests that the decline was not evenly distributed across the company’s network, with the sharpest weakness concentrated in Puerto Vallarta’s international market and, to a lesser extent, in Los Cabos.
The July figures were better than June, when Puerto Vallarta’s total passenger traffic fell 18.7%. International traffic dropped 33.4% in June, while domestic traffic declined 6%. The improvement in July came almost entirely from the domestic side, which moved slightly higher, while international traffic remained substantially below last year’s level.
Traffic remains lower for the year as a whole. From January through July, Puerto Vallarta Airport handled 3.806 million passengers, down 12.6% from the 4.356 million recorded during the same period in 2025.
The year-to-date decline includes a 19.3% drop in international traffic and a 3.2% decrease in domestic passengers. International traffic accounted for the majority of the lost passengers during the first seven months of the year.
As PVDN reported after the first half of 2026, Puerto Vallarta had already lost nearly half a million passengers through June. July added another 66,400-passenger shortfall compared with the same month last year.
GAP reported that available seats across its airport network increased 0.7% in July, while the average load factor rose from 84.8% to 85.2%. Those figures apply to the company’s network and do not establish how capacity changed specifically at Puerto Vallarta Airport.
The July report does not identify a specific cause for Puerto Vallarta’s decline. The figures do show a clear separation between the airport’s domestic and international markets, with domestic traffic holding steady while international passenger volume remains the central weakness.
