Spring Break Traffic Expectation at Orlando Airport

 

Traditionally, Spring Break is the busiest time of the year at Orlando International Airport (MCO) and last year, 2020, Spring Break was also the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Like all commercial airports, MCO experienced a dramatic drop in traffic in the spring of 2020. Spring Break traffic was off 1.8 million passengers from the previous year. Now, a year later, MCO is expecting a rebound with a predicted 45 percent increase over Spring Break 2020 or about 613,000 more passengers departing between February 28th and April 13th.

“The combination of additional flights in our market, the expanded distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and the undeniable lure of Central Florida as a getaway destination portends for robust air travel as we approach this year’s Spring Break,” says Phil Brown, Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.

“It is a much-welcomed improvement over this time last year when we were at the depths of the pandemic.”

A couple of factors are also adding to the optimism, airlines have plans to add more seats to the market. If current projections remain solid, there will be more domestic airline seats available in April at MCO than there were in 2019 before the pandemic struck. Also, Hawaiian Airlines starts new, first-of-its-kind service from Orlando to Honolulu starting Saturday, March 13th.

Below is a comparison snapshot of selected Spring Break travel days. Easter Sunday, April 4th is expected to be the busiest Spring Break travel day with 55,435 departures from MCO. In total, MCO is anticipating 1.9 million departing passengers this Spring Break season.

Sunday, March 1st 2020	81,816		Sunday, February 28th 2021	51,510
Wednesday, March 4th 2020	60,118		Wednesday, March 3rd 2021	28,946
Monday, March 9th 2020	72,012		Monday, March 8th 2021	41,399
Wednesday, March 18th 2020	33,638		Wednesday, March 17th 2021	41,251
Sunday, March 22nd 2020	18,039		Sunday, March 21st 2021	48,076
Tuesday, March 24th 2020	7,987		Tuesday, March 23rd 2021	42,445
Saturday, March 28th 2020	5,104		Saturday, March 27th 2021	43,493
Wednesday, April 1st 2020	3,071		Wednesday, March 31st 2021	44,180
Monday, April 6th 2020	2,597		Monday, April 5th 2021	55,335
Friday, April 10th 2020	2,352		Friday, April 9th 2021	46,984
Tuesday, April 14th 2020	1,712		Tuesday, April 13th 2021	51,275

The information herein is provided as of the dates specified. Due to the outbreak and continuation of COVID-19 subsequent to the date of such information, the information contained herein may differ materially from the current operational and financial data.

Tags: Spring Break, Orlando International Airport