Passenger traffic at Miami International Airport continued to surge in the first half of 2011 with total volume up 6.8 percent through June, according to statistics from the Miami-Dade Aviation Department. MIA saw 18.8 million travelers in the first six months of the year – 1.2 million passengers more than the airport served through the same period last year.

International passengers jumped 8.4 percent to 8.8 million travelers and domestic travelers grew 5.4 percent to 10 million. In the month of June alone, total passengers increased 7.6 percent to 3.2 million passengers. International traffic grew 8.6 percent to more than 1.5 million passengers and domestic travel rose 6.8 percent to nearly 1.7 million passengers.

Passenger numbers were boosted by new and expanded routes. In March, KLM began new service from Amsterdam with four weekly flights, and Iberia began new service from Barcelona with three weekly flights. Also in March, Delta began providing daily service from London Heathrow. American Airlines launched new daily service to Casa De Campo, Dominican Republic in May and began increasing service to seven other destinations as well. In June, Dutch airline ArkeFly also began twice-weekly service from Amsterdam and TAP Portugal began service from Lisbon five times per week. June also saw the beginning of Airbus A380 service by Lufthansa for its daily service from Frankfurt, which increases capacity on that route by nearly 200 seats per day.