For travelers, Orlando International Airport’s rebound from the coronavirus pandemic will begin with mandatory face masks, window shields for ticket agents, fewer airlines and destinations, and half as many passengers in the airport.
But behind the scenes at Orlando’s airport is a high-stakes and gut-wrenching struggle for survival — from airlines, rental-car companies and retailers to restaurateurs, other concessionaires and even the airport. Its director says it could be five years before pre-pandemic passenger levels return.
The airport is not without robust optimism from some airlines and others. But the bottom line, many of those operating at the airport say, is that their immediate fates are in the hands of others.
“We all need the hotels and theme parks and attractions to come back, or it’s going to be pretty devastating,” said Barry Biffle, chief executive officer for Frontier Airlines, which has made Orlando International its second-busiest airport after its Denver home base. “I think it’s time for Mickey and Minnie to put on a mask and let’s get back to work.”
COVID-19 precautions are being ramped up for flights, including fogging the insides of airplanes with sanitizing aerosols, installing high-efficiency filters for cabin air and requiring passengers to wear masks. Frontier is taking the added steps of having passengers fill out health-acknowledgement forms. and, starting June 1, doing temperature screening of passengers and crew before each flight.
To varying degrees, airlines are also attempting to keep middle seats empty to provide extra spacing passengers.
Airlines that have or will require face masks are American, Delta, Alaska Airways, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit, Southwest and United, according to the airport authority. TSA announced late Thursday that its screening officers must wear masks.
Along with clear-plastic shields in ticket lobbies, the Orlando airport is installing the shields at restaurants and retail counters.
At TSA checkpoints, passenger lines will be uncoiled, ensuring 6 feet of spacing on each side of lines and 6 feet between individuals within lines. There will be ample room for that at Orlando’s checkpoints, but the lines will appear much longer than they actually are, said TSA spokesman Mark Howell.
At least for a few years, the overall passenger experience at Orlando International Airport will be significantly less crowded than it was up until two months ago.
Airlines are betting they can win passengers’ confidence that they won’t catch COVID-19 in flight, but small companies fear they won’t survive and many concessionaires contend they aren’t able to pay airport fees because their business has flatlined.
As coronavirus infections spread across the nation, air travel has nosedived. On April 14, TSA officers screened a total of 87,000 passengers across the U.S., marking the slowest day since the outbreak, and nearly matching the typical daily volume at Orlando International Airport before the outbreak.
At the start of the year as the nation’s 10th-busiest airport, Orlando International had stuffed parking garages, crowded ticket lobbies and frequently significant TSA waits.
The count of passengers arriving and leaving was the equivalent of the University of Central Florida’s 60,000 students passing through airport more than twice daily. The coronavirus cut that traffic by 95 percent. Other major airports have suffered similar declines.
Orlando International Airport owes its size and volume – it had been Florida’s busiest airport through early this year – to tourists who spend their savings for primarily budget-fare flights.
The region’s industry-leading draw of tourism generates a financial ecosystem that begins at the airport.
“When we make money, we make money together and when we lose money, we lose money together,” said Jaime Cortes, the owner of his family-run Cortrans Shuttle Service, which specializes in ferrying cruise-ship passengers between Port Canaveral and the airport.
When the pandemic put the region’s tourism into a sudden coma, Cortes had to refund thousands of reservations for shuttle trips through this summer. That left him unable to pay his dozen drivers.
He now essentially faces a gambler’s choice.
Cortes said he could borrow to cover payments on his fleet of 20-seat buses. But the cruise business may not revive for many months and when it does, social distancing may prevent his shuttle trips from running more than half full, which wouldn’t cover fuel, payroll, port and airport fees and Beachline Expressway tolls.
Or he could cut losses now, folding a decade-old company that his family had grown into a five-star rating with Tripadvisor.
“It’s terrifying,” Cortes said.
The outlook is not entirely gloomy.
Scott Keyes, chief executive officer of Scott’s Cheap Flights, a website service that notifies subscribers of low fares, said there is a pent-up, growing demand for future vacation travel especially as tickets prices have dropped and cancellation penalties have been done away with by many airlines.
“Even in the best of times, travel is an escape and I think that’s doubly true in the worst of times,” Keyes said. “Looking forward to travel is a way to cope with being cooped up, staying inside to flatten the curve.”
Biffle, Frontier’s CEO, said his airline will not reduce service to Orlando.
Frontier bills itself as having the most destinations of any airline from Orlando. Frontier went to 55 cities in February and 53 cities in April, dropped to 30 scheduled for this month but plans to serve 47 cities from Orlando next month, according to airport statistics. The weekly departures dropped from 330 in February to 83 this month.
“We are very bullish about the future,” Biffle said. “Our plan is to grow next year.”
Lufthansa, a carrier that Orlando’s airport has prized since it arrived in 2007, is poised to resume flights from Frankfurt, Germany, and to start up flights by its subsidiary Eurowings from Munich.
“Though the industry faces headwinds from current travel bans on both sides of the Atlantic, and a steep fall in demand, the Lufthansa Group remains committed to Orlando and the region,” spokesman Tal Muscal said. “The group hopes to resume normal operations once the crisis allows for a lifting of travel restrictions and looks forward to serving Central Florida when demand for travel to and from Orlando calls for our services.”
Sixt, a rising rental-car company, is pressing for an expansion into the Orlando airport’s new south terminal. “We absolutely still plan to do that,” said Daniel Florence, Sixt’s U.S. chief operating officer. “We are suffering the same as everybody else in volume. But I think we are in a position where we’ve done the right things to set ourselves up to survive.”
Airport director Phil Brown is preparing a recovery forecast and contingency options for presentation at the airport authority’s meeting later this month.
He said the daily count of outbound passengers, running in the low thousands, isn’t likely to change much through the end of the airport’s fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The volume in 2021 may recover to 20 million passengers, or less than half of last year’s pace of 50 million annually. By 2022, the count could reach 30 million to 35 million, Brown said.
His extended forecast, which he is still vetting with economists and industry experts, is that Orlando International could take as many as five years to regain its pre-pandemic passenger volumes.
Meanwhile, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, a public agency that governs and operates the airport, is saddled with debt payments from ongoing construction of its new terminal, costing more than $3 billion.
Now being drafted but not yet disclosed by Brown are options for delaying some portions of the new terminal, to temporarily hold down costs, but substantially finishing the massive complex a mile south of the original terminal and opening for passengers in early 2022.
Once the south terminal is open, it may be possible to shutter some of the older portions of the existing terminal, with that option still under discussion, Brown said.
Another budget-salvaging alternative is seeking a big tenant, such as a manufacturer, distributor or commerce hub not tied to tourism, that needs a lot of airport space.
“I’m looking at diversifying the portfolio for the airport because if you are going to do that now would be the time,” Brown said.
Also ahead is balancing the airport’s well-being with that of airlines and concessionaires, many of which are pressing for waivers of rents and fees.
More than half of the airport’s budget is not tied to aviation revenues, such as ticket and landing fees, and comes from rental-car companies, retailers, restaurants and others.
An Orlando airport tenant, 3Sixty Duty Free, has been particularly hard-hit by the nearly complete shutdown of international flights.
“It is fair to say that we have now had a positive response from most airports in the USA, and most of these including Miami, Dallas, Philadelphia and Newark to name but a few, have responded by waiving minimum annual guarantee rent payments,” said Alexander Anson-Esparza, 3Sixty’s chief operating officer in an email.
Anson said those other airports have agreed to accept a percentage of the company’s diminished revenues.
“We are looking forward to receiving a similar solution from GOAA as soon as possible,” Anson said. “That will give us certainty as to how we will move forward with our business and our team members. Our priority is to continue employing our local team in Orlando.”
Brown said the airport authority at some point will have to come to terms with how many concessionaires will be able to endure a slow comeback and how many will be forced into bankruptcy.
“Common sense tells me that if you continue to have low traffic you are not going to be able to support all of the concessions that were here because they were being supported by 50 million passengers a year,” Brown said. “If I’ve only got 20 million, somebody’s not going to be able to make it.”
kspear@orlandosentinel.comv
