Portland Is Again Getting a Direct Flight to Amsterdam

The direct flight between two weed capitals is the first nonstop service from Portland to a European city since COVID-19 descended.

Travelers in Portland International Airport on March 1, 2020. (Justin Katigbak) (Justin Katigbak)
By Tori Lieberman

Did a mellow feeling just wash over you? Portland International Airport is once again getting a nonstop flight to Amsterdam.

The Delta Airlines flight will begin service on May 3, 2022, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The Port of Portland did not respond to requests for comment on the service restoration.

The direct flight between two weed capitals is the first nonstop service from Portland to a European city since COVID-19 descended. It provides the latest signal that aviation traffic is returning to pre-pandemic levels at PDX.

The most recent numbers from the Port of Portland, from September 2021, show a 130.1% increase in passengers from September 2020 (484,193 passengers) to September 2021 (1.1 million passengers). 2020 saw a 71% decrease in passengers from 2019, when the airport saw 1.6 million passengers in September.

Though numbers still lag behind 2019 levels, the number of flights and passengers has still overcome dramatic decreases in 2020 levels. An employee at the airport echoed this sentiment when asked how airport traffic numbers compare this year to 2020.

“Oh, [it’s] significant,” he said. “We’ve had a significant increase in passenger travel.”

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