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Orlando International Airport: America’s holiday gateway
By Volker K. Thomalla
According to Carolyn Fennell, Director of Public Affairs for the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, the company which operates Orlando International Airport in central Florida, “Passengers should have the Florida feeling immediately after disembarking. That is why we put a lot of emphasis on light and transparency in the design of the building and we planted palm trees in the terminals.”
It is not only on this account that Orlando International is unusual for an airport. In 2006 it was used by over 34 million passengers even though it is not a hub airport, but generates primarily originating and terminating traffic. Another interesting fact is that children account for an unusually high proportion of its passengers, 11 percent. Orlando and Central Florida is a holiday region and this is reflected precisely in the composition of the passengers using the airport.
“Our airport should be as easy to use as possible,” says Dave Wegman, events coordinator at the airport. “We want passengers to associate our airport with a pleasant experience. After all, a majority of passengers visits Orlando more than once in their lives.” As well as visitors drawn by the big theme parks, business travellers visiting one of the many trade fairs and conferences held in Orlando constitute another important target group of the airport. Passengers starting a cruise in Florida are a third sizeable visitor group. They are collected directly from the terminal by bus and taken to one of several cruise ports on the coast.
The airport passenger facilities comprise one central terminal building and four satellite terminals connected by an automatic people mover system. 24 shuttle units carry up to 85,000 passengers from and to the 96 gates in the satellite terminals every day. The third and fourth satellites were opened in 1990 and 2000. The terminals have been fitted out following the clear principle that the airport should be easy to use. For many people, a high level of background noise is a stress factor. Hence most of the walking surfaces in the terminals are laid with carpet so as to dampen the sound of people walking around and the clatter of suitcases. Moreover, a fountain has been installed in the central building as the sound of water has a calming effect on people. To contain the costs of carpet maintenance, the shops in the airport are contractually prohibited from selling chewing gum. Smoking is likewise not permitted, as is the case in virtually all public buildings in the USA.
To offer the terminal users as much diversion as possible, the airport has installed over 40 works of art of differing styles. A 3000 gallons aquarium in the restaurant area provides further variety and is especially popular with children. On top of this, the big amusement parks around Orlando have their own shops in the airport and in some cases have mounted wall decorations inviting travellers to take photos as mementoes.
Most holidaymakers and business travellers have one thing in common: they all need a rental car to get around this part of the world. There are no mass transportation facilities in the region around Orlando, although an urban railway is planned for the future. Central Florida, centred around Orlando, is therefore the biggest rental car market in the world.
There is no single dominant airline in Orlando. Southwest has a market share of 19.3 percent, followed by Delta Air Lines with 17.6 percent and American Airlines with 10.4 percent. Other airlines with significant market share are US Airways (8.3 percent), AirTran (8.1 percent), Continental (7.4 percent), JetBlue (6.3 percent) and United Airlines (6.1 percent). The airport company is satisfied with this mix, as it guarantees competition on the routes from and to Orlando, which in turn keeps fares low.
Thanks to a good balance between low-cost airlines and traditional carriers, Orlando International is able to offer a large number of non-stop domestic connections covering both the big hubs and also secondary airports. The latter are primarily served by the no-frills providers, although JetBlue, for example, also flies from Orlando to New York John F. Kennedy (JFK). There are non-stop flights from Orlando to over 120 destinations. Domestic flights to Newark, New York JFK, Philadelphia and New York LaGuardia saw the highest passenger volumes in 2006. On international routes from and to Orlando, London Gatwick, Toronto, Manchester, Amsterdam and Montego Bay were the destinations with the most passengers. Despite this, Orlando is not a transfer airport. The statistics suggest that fewer than five percent of users are transit passengers. 95 percent of passenger volume is originating and terminating traffic.
The MCO airport code assigned to Orlando International by the International Air Transport Association originates from the period before 1975 when the airport was still a strategic bomber command base and its name was McCoy Air Force Base. Today, apart from the MCO code, the only reminder of the military origins of America’s number one holiday airport is a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress parked in the bomber park near the north entrance. Of the buildings which formed the military base, only two have survived to this day. They are located to the west of the airport and are used as maintenance hangars by Continental Airlines.
Orlando International has developed at breakneck speed. Between 1989 and 2006 the number of passengers doubled from 17 million to over 34 million. Only in 2001 and 2002 did it experience any dip in passenger numbers, but by 2003 traffic was on the rise again and the following year the number of passengers had already overtaken the pre-2001 level. According to Robert Brancheau, Senior Director for Planning at Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, the forecasts predict that the 40 million mark will be broken in 2011. For three years running between 2004 and 2006 passenger numbers exceeded forecasts.
“Within the next ten years we plan to bring airport capacity in line with demand with an investment programme to the value of three billion dollars,” says Brancheau. The Capital Improvement Plan envisages expansion in a number of small stages, by the end of which the concourse area will have doubled. “Land availability is not a problem for us, as the airport grounds cover over 5,660 hectares today.” The airport operating company has drawn up a “roadmap” plan according to which capacity will expand to accommodate demand in a series of phases. The main focus is on extending terminal capacity as this will soon reach its limits. With four runways, two of which are long enough for wide-body aircraft to take off on intercontinental flight, there is no need for any runway expansion over the next few years.
The existing terminal complex is situated between the runways at the north of the airport grounds. Directly to the south of these a new terminal complex is to be built, creating up to 120 extra gates. In the first phase of the expansion, however, only an intermodal centre with parking spaces, bus station, hotel and a baggage distribution facility are planned. This will form the basis for the south terminal building at a later stage of the expansion programme. There are also plans to construct a railway station, as the state of Florida intends in the long-term to build a high-speed railway. The aim is that airport capacity should double by 2020.
In this connection, the Airbus A380 is also an issue for Orlando. The only airline which currently flies to MCO and has also ordered the new Airbus megaliner is Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic. One of the four airport runways has sufficient load-carrying capacity for the A380. Modification of the taxiways to the turning radii and the necessary widening of taxiways in certain places will be carried out under the routine maintenance programme and do not require major building works. The airport company plans to create up to four A380 positions over the next few years in line with demand.
77 percent of Orlando International’s revenue ($309 million in 2006) comes from activities which are nothing to do with the airlines. 35 percent comprises revenue from rentral car companies and parking spaces. Another important revenue earner is the 446-room hotel integrated into the central building which is leased to the Hyatt Group, generating 9.6 percent of the airport’s income. “In the long term we would like 100 percent of our revenue to come from non-aviation areas,” says Rod Johnson, Public Affairs Manager of the airport. “This will be popular with our customers, the airlines, as it will enable them to offer their passengers lower fares.”
From FLUG REVUE 5/2007
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