OREANDA-NEWS. Total passenger traffic at Miami International Airport grew 1.1 percent in the first six months of 2013 to 20.3 million travelers, led by international traffic jumping 4.2 percent to 9.9 million passengers through June. Domestic travelers declined by 1.6 percent to 10.3 million year to date.

MIA has added two new international routes already this year and is scheduled to receive four more in the second half of 2013. American Airlines began service to the Caribbean destinations of Guadeloupe and Martinique on April 6 with once-a-week service on Saturdays, and is also slated to launch new routes from MIA to Milan, Italy in November and the Brazilian destinations of Curitiba and Porto Alegre in Brazil later this year. The two new Brazilian cities will be the eighth and ninth destinations in Brazil with service from MIA - the most by any U.S. airport. The fourth new international route scheduled to begin at MIA this year is non-stop service to Calgary by Canadian low-cost carrier WestJet effective October 28. The new service will begin with four weekly flights until December 14 and then grow to six weekly flights through April 26. Additional service for existing international routes this year included XL Airways France starting operations at MIA on June 28 with three weekly flights to Paris, Haiti Aviation joining MIA on July 19 with daily service to Port au Prince, and Dutch Antilles Express adding a second daily flight to Curacao on August 1.

Domestically, American Airlines launched daily San Diego-Miami non-stop service on June 12 to create the only current air service between the two cities and add the third destination in California with non-stop service from MIA, joining Los Angeles and San Francisco.

MIA's total freight shipments grew one percent for more than one million tons through June, with international freight increasing 1.26 percent and domestic freight dipping 1.44 percent.