
MSP Airport in Minnesota Just Set Another Amazing Record
Things are definitely looking up at Minnesota's largest airport, as MSP Airport just set yet another record.
It is true that the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) is the largest airport in the North Star State. So it's no surprise that a LOT of Minnesotans (and Iowans and Wisconsinites and others) head through the TSA checkpoints at MSP each year when traveling across the country and overseas.
It helps that you can fly to A LOT of different places directly from MSP without having to catch a connecting flight elsewhere. In fact, the airport says airlines at MSP served 163 nonstop destinations from the North Star State in 2023, up from 156 destinations in 2023 and 145 destinations in 2022.
ALSO INTERESTING: The Surprising Fact About MSP Airport You May Not Know
Did you know that 18 different airlines fly in and out of MSP? Here's the current line-up:
+ Aer Lingus
+ Air Canada
+ AirFrance
+ Alaska Airlines
+ Allegiant Airlines
+ American Airlines
+ Condor Airlines
+ Delta Air Lines
+ Denver Air
+ Frontier Airlines
+ Icelandair
+ KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
+ Lufthansa Airlines
+ Spirit Airlines
+ Southwest Airlines
+ Sun Country Airlines
+ United Airlines
+ WestJet
Those 18 airlines teamed up to provide a lot of planes either leaving or coming back to Minnesota from those 163 destinations at MSP last year. Overall, MSP saw 324,140 flight operations (both takeoffs and landings) in 2024, up from 323,929 in 2023 and 310,269 in 2022. MSP also averaged 60,644 daily departing seats, up from 56,823 a year ago, an increase of 6.7 percent.
All those numbers add up to an even bigger number: 37,168,257. That's the total number of passengers who went through the gates at MSP in 2024. That 37 million is a a nearly 7 percent increase from the 34,770,800 passengers who used MSP in 2023, and the 31,241,822 passengers served in 2022.
READ MORE: Two Airlines Ending Flights to Minnesota in 2025
But it's the passengers who flew from MSP and headed to a foreign country that just set a new record in 2024. MSP says strong demand for international travel helped MSP hit record numbers last year:
3,569,721 international travelers used MSP in 2024, besting the previous record set in 2019. That number is also a 19.6% increase over 2023’s total of 2,984,169 international passengers.
Airlines at MSP served 32 international destinations last year — matching the record level set in 2019. I'm happy to say that my wife and I were part of that record; we flew from MSP to Dublin, Ireland, and back during a 12-day trip overseas in September of 2024.
With all these increases, it's not a surprise MSP was once again named the best airport in North America for the third year in a row last year, marking the seventh time in the last eight years it won that distinction.
If you're like me, you may not know how to pronounce all those foreign destinations MSP serves. However, you likely *do* know how to correctly pronounce the uniquely Minnesotan names of some of our cities here in the Gopher State, right? Keep scrolling to see how many YOU know how to say.
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Only True Minnesotans Know How to Pronounce These Names
Gallery Credit: Curt St. John