Miami International Airport is exploring the addition of new cargo flights and has generated new passenger flights, with more expected to come this year.

As of March, 107 of 190 total nonstop destinations are international. The airport has added new direct routes to Ottawa; Bimini, Bahamas; and Milan so far this year and flights to Cordoba, Argentina, as well as Asuncion, Paraguay, are expected to start in June.

Options being explored include routes to Montevideo, Uruguay, and Brussels, Belgium. Miami International is also still looking at Eastern European and Middle Eastern routes. Aviation Director Ralph Cutié said the airport continues to pursue a direct route to Tokyo.

“We’re still working on that, and that’s moving along nicely,” he said about service between Miami and Tokyo. “We feel fairly confident that that’s going to happen. We’re just not sure when. It could be probably [in the] next couple of years. That’s how it’s looking because … they’re in the process of purchasing aircraft and getting their business case done.”

Additionally, the airport is working on direct connections to Shanghai and Singapore.

Cargo shipments at MIA were up by 13.6% to nearly 3.5 million tons in 2025, marking six consecutive years of record-breaking growth.

“If we’re able to make this route, this direct cargo route to China work … that will really, really bump up even more our cargo numbers,” Mr. Cutié said, “so that’ll increase our ranking in the cargo world both domestically and internationally… Those are some of the international routes that we’re exploring.”

The airport ended last year with 55,314,661 total passengers, 30,464,597 of them domestic and 24,850,064 international.

“If you remember, back in 2024, we had nearly 56 million passengers, which is our best year ever,” he said. “So last year we were about 1% under 2024, but the good news is we fared better than most – just about every other airport around the country. I mean, nationwide, the average downturn was a little over 2% and we hung pretty solid at 1%, so we were really about three or four days’ worth of passenger traffic away from breaking our 2024 record.”

Mr. Cutié added that it’s not something he’s “really concerned about” because he knows “that’ll bounce back,” citing factors that impacted passenger traffic, including weather events and the federal government shutdown.

“We fared really pretty well when compared to our competitors, and I think that speaks to our market, Latin American and Caribbean market, and those types of things,” he said. “So we’re very blessed, I think, to be where we are, not just because of geographical location but just as far as our operation and how efficient we are. I think we did pretty well, and hopefully this year we’ll continue to do well.”

As for growth in air links around the globe, “they’re actively working on probably more than 20, 30 routes and out of those, if we get eight or nine, we will bump up,” Mr. Cutié continued.

“Right now, I think we have 190 destinations in total, and we have nearly 100 airlines flying with us, which is the most of any airport in the country,” he said. “So we add just those eight or nine additional routes this year, that’ll bump us up over 100 as far as the number of airlines, and it’ll increase our routes to probably close to 200 or right around there, so on the international side, it’s a really bright future, I think, both on the cargo side and the passenger side for us. So we’re looking forward to 2026, and having a nice bounce-back from last year.”

He later said the airport is expecting a bump in passenger traffic due to the FIFA World Cup matches being hosted in Miami, with 98,000 flights scheduled.

“We’re also expecting a big bump in traffic now come June when the World Cup comes,” Mr. Cutié said. “We’re looking at probably an additional close to a million passengers total coming through our airport, so that’ll help with our numbers….

“FIFA is going to be big for us here, because between the passengers coming in international and then from there, if their teams continue to win, they’ll be traveling to other domestic destinations around the country, the other host cities, and then ultimately, they’ll end up flying back here for the semi-final games, so that’s multiple traffic back and forth, which is really going to help with our numbers… We’re estimating between 900,000 to an additional million passengers just during that three-week period, plus or minus, for the World Cup.”