With today’s official reopening of Disney’s Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom there is certainly hope within the tourism industry that we will start to see some positive trend in people visiting the sunshine state, and there are some signs that it may already be happening.
May passenger traffic at Orlando International Airport (MCO) more than doubled what was reported in April, and as you would expect, that traffic is primarily coming from domestic locations. According to Orlando International Airport, more than 214 thousand more passengers flew in May than in April from MCO.
“May was the beginning of the slight uptick in traffic that we’ve been seeing at Orlando International,” says Phil Brown, Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority. “More airlines providing service, fewer cancellations and more people feeling comfortable with flying again all contributed to the better news.”
Once again, domestic mail delivery was a bright spot for the month at MCO. Mail volume increased 171.86 percent over this time last year.
As you would likely expect, not all the data was positive. Domestic passenger traffic was still down 90.19 percent in May at Orlando International Airport with 367,177 total passengers, and International traffic was off 99.69 percent with 1,932 total passengers. But that still means that 369,109 passengers were flying into or flying from MCO. It’s a start given the huge drop in flying since the start of the pandemic.
As of Thursday, July 9, 2020, there were a total of 19,366 departing passengers at MCO for the day, making MCO the seventh busiest airport in the United States. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a projected number of 69,275 passengers expected to travel from Orlando International Airport.
