While expecting a crowded holiday season, Orlando International Airport is at risk of losing its standing as Florida’s busiest, with Miami’s airport the nation’s busiest for international service and surging its domestic service.
“Miami International Airport has added a number of airlines to its service portfolio – Southwest, JetBlue, Spirit and Frontier are four that have added service at Miami International,” said Phil Brown, Orlando International’s chief executive officer, speaking Wednesday to the airport’s board.
“It appears in the month of November, MIA will overtake MCO (Orlando International Airport) in terms of available seat capacity,” Brown said. “It’s entirely possible that Miami will pass MCO as the busiest airport in November and December.”
Riding a torrid increase in passengers through much of the last decade, Orlando’s airport jumped ahead of Miami’s airport in 2017 as the state’s busiest. That year, Orlando was also the nation’s 13th busiest, handling 44.6 million passengers.
During the past year, domestic tourism fueled a passenger rebound at Orlando’s airport, keeping it among the nation’s busiest as business travel at larger airports plummeted because of COVID-19.
But also this year, Miami has been the nation’s busiest airport for international passengers, with 7.7 million of 22.8 million total passengers through August traveling internationally, according to Miami’s airport.
Both Orlando and Miami airports are anticipating potentially significant growth in international passengers starting in November, when the U.S. government allows entrance by vaccinated, non-U.S. citizens from 39 countries for the first time since the pandemic started.
Miami’s airport stated that expected seating capacity for international travel from October through December is already 10 percent greater than during the same period in 2019 just prior to the pandemic.
“Thanks to more vaccine availability around the world and the travel measures being taken by our federal government, our tourism industry and local economy can now enter a new and exciting chapter in our recovery from the pandemic,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, in a statement provided by the Miami airport.
Last month, Miami International Airport landed in first place in the J.D. Power 2021 customer satisfaction survey among the largest North American Airports. JFK International Airport was second, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was third and Orlando International Airport was fourth.
Brown said flights from the U.K., traditionally one of the busiest international destinations from Orlando, are likely to resume in coming weeks.
“The latest information we have is that Virgin Atlantic will resume service at Orlando International on Nov. 8; British Airways will resume service Nov. 15,” Brown said. “We should start to see an increase in international service but the expectation is that it’s going to take awhile to ramp up.”
