DES MOINES -- COVID-19 coronavirus shut-downs are taking a toll on passenger traffic in the Des Moines International Airport--especially compared to this time last year.
"We had 241,156 passengers then. Last month's 10,767 passengers is a 95.5 percent decrease. Certainly COVID-19 has has a devastating impact on the travel industry as a whole" says airport spokesperson Kayla Kovarna.
She says passenger traffic is down 33 percent so far in 2020--a travel decline that's being seen in airports around the nation.
Kovarna says there is a glimmer of bit of hope.
"The last seven days we saw a 25 percent increase in passengers compared to the seven days prior" she says.
Kovarna says they're increasing safety and sanitation efforts--including using a disinfectant fogging machine to cover large areas, increasing the number of hand-sanitizer stations, and doing routine deep-cleaning of so called "high touch" areas.