Travelers wait to check in at the airberlin counter at Southwest Florida International Airport.(Photo: File photo)

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The biggest month and quarter, ever – in 32 years.

That's the news from Southwest Florida International Airport, which on Tuesday reported serving nearly 1.2 million passengers in March.

That's historically the airport's busiest month because it's the peak of tourism's winter high season, when demand and hotel rates are the greatest.

"We're really pleased with the season we've had. I'd attribute it to travel and tourism hitting on all cylinders," said Bob Ball, executive director of the Lee County Port Authority.

More details from the port authority's March report:

• 1,181,382 passengers used the airport.

• That's a 3% gain over March 2014, and 5.5% higher than the same January-through-March period last year.

• March was the airport's 16th consecutive month of record-breaking passenger growth.

• Southwest was the busiest carrier, serving 305,827 passengers. Rounding out the top five were Delta, 249,241; US Airways, 118,856; JetBlue, 115,452; and United, 110,639.

"The marketing efforts of the visitor and convention bureaus in Lee and Collier counties — and the marketing programs we're doing — are leading to the continued success we enjoyed before the recession," Ball said.

Holiday Inn Fort Myers Airport at Town Center managing director Brian Holly said his establishment houses some airline crews. "Our crew numbers were up."

Hotels were bursting at the seams, primarily with leisure travelers, last month: "We already were in 90% occupancies last March," Holly said.

Major League Baseball spring training helped fill inland hotels such has Holly's in March. He noticed a pattern of families from New England and the Midwest "spending a couple of nights here, catching a game; spending a few nights on the beach; and then spending another couple of nights with us and seeing another game, before flying out."

Ball hopes year-end passenger and revenue totals also will break records. He cautioned, though, that the decline in the value of European and Canadian currencies relative to the dollar might affect travel behavior.

However, Ball also noted, "there could be additional outbound traffic to make up for those impacts. It's now less expensive for domestic passengers to travel abroad."

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