The allure of Martha’s Vineyard in the summer is attracting more and more travelers by air, with 2025 continuing the trends of ballooning passengers counts over the last five years at the Island’s airport.

Martha’s Vineyard Airport says it carried a little more than 87,000 commercial passengers last year, a 7 per cent increase over the year prior and a new record. The two-runway airport has now seen year-over-year growth in passengers every year since the pandemic. 

The 87,193 passengers in 2025 is still quite small when compared to the main mode of transportation for tourists and Islanders: the Steamship Authority. Through Dec. 21 of last year, the ferry line carried more than 2 million people, about the same as the year prior.

But air travel’s piece of the transportation puzzle continues to grow, and is especially attractive to people coming to the Vineyard in the heart of the summer. Tourism in August 2025 proved to be a behemoth — so much so that its rise to prominence has some worried that the Vineyard’s traditional summer season could be shrinking to just a handful of weeks. 

A month-by-month passenger count for 2025.

Courtesy MVY Airport

A month-by-month passenger count for 2025.

Courtesy MVY Airport

The airport saw one of its busiest months ever this past August, with nearly 32,300 people coming in and out of the airport. The total was a 21 per cent jump over 2024, but couldn’t be counted as an all-time high because most of the historical data is broken down by year, not by month, said airport director Geoff Freeman. 

“We’re at one of our largest totals,” he said. “It was definitely one of our stronger months historically.”

Vineyard hotel owners, rental agents and business owners reported dips in the spring this year, and even slower bookings in June and July. The airport saw similar patterns, with a 14 per cent dip in May and a 13 per cent drop in June. 

“I think we are with the rest of the Island on the success of the summer, where it was really leaning on August,” said Mr. Freeman. “The shoulder seasons were not as strong as they were in the past.”

Though the airport has seen its passenger numbers rise, the total number of planes hasn’t kept pace. In 2025, between private planes, commercial flights and military flights, there were about 44,000 planes that contacted the air traffic control tower for landings and takeoffs. This was close to recent years but well off from historic figures where there were 60,000 planes, according to Mr. Freeman.

That means the commercial planes that do come here are fuller than ever in the prime summer weeks. 

The airport recently started construction on a revamp of the existing terminal that straddles the West Tisbury and Edgartown town lines. Much of the earlier stages has been ground and utility work, but construction will begin on the building itself.

Tallies continue to go up.

Tim Johnson

Tallies continue to go up.

Tim Johnson

Mr. Freeman didn’t expect the number of passengers to grow much higher in the coming years with the overhauled building. The only thing that he could see boosting numbers much further was if more routes are added, or other airlines add larger planes, both of which seem unlikely.

“It’s really difficult to see large changes,” he said. “We have limited space here and the market is well-served.”

Airlines have not yet submitted their plans for the summer, but drafts should be coming in the next few weeks. The only potential addition on the table at the moment is a company called JSX looking into offering small charter flights similar to what Tradewind runs out of the airport now.

The more plausible room for growth in Mr. Freeman’s eyes were if more people packed the planes, pushing them to be entirely full more often. 

“We don’t anticipate much,” he said. “It’s more of the load factors.”