Even if you go back to 2008...well before Midwest's big 2008 cutbacks...this year's traffic was up over 100,000...nearly 17%...from that record year. January is normally the weakest month at Mitchell.
Another way in which this is remarkable: Milwaukee's traffic surpassed Memphis, Kansas City, and Cincinnati in the month:
697,495 ….. Milwaukee
689,084 ….. Memphis
676,702 ….. Kansas City
656,364 ….. Cincinnati
647,707 ….. Houston Hobby
635,931 ….. Nashville
628,979 ….. Raleigh
610,026 ….. Austin
581,733 ….. San Jose
576,677 ….. Pittsburgh
574,032 ….. Dallas Love
533,134 ….. Indianapolis
472,710 ….. Albuquerque
449,827 ….. Columbus
As reported in another thread, the Q4 Republic call said the MKE operation load factor for January was about 10 points higher than last year. We don't know if other airlines did as well (or perhaps better) when it comes to load factor in January, but clearly the overall traffic numbers show good response to capacity growth here.