Passenger traffic at Denver International Airport totaled 4,011,123 in September, a decline of 0.2 percent over the 4,017,761 travelers recorded at the airport in the same month last year. Despite the nearly flat monthly total, it was the second-busiest September ever at the Denver airport.

Traffic records had been set at DIA the two previous months, when the airport had its busiest month ever in July and its busiest August in history. Traffic growth in those months ended a downward trend that began in December 2008.

“To be down only a fraction of one percent from the same month in 2008, when DIA set its all-time traffic record, is encouraging for us,” Aviation Manager Kim Day said Wednesday. “We still believe that traffic is starting to rebound as the economy improves, and that we will finish 2009 only slightly below last year’s record number.”

For the year, passenger traffic at DIA totaled 38,335,231 through September. That was down 2.5 percent from the 39,338,285 travelers recorded during the first nine months of 2008.

DIA handled 49,287 flight operations in September, also a decline of 0.2 percent from the same month of 2008.  For the first nine months of 2009, DIA’s operations totaled 462,593, 3.0 percent below the same period of last year.