Orlando Airport opens new $2.8b home for JetBlue

Orlando International Airport opened its first new terminal in more than 30 years this week. Aer Lingus inaugurated the $2.8b Terminal C, which will also soon house JetBlue Airways, with a departure to the UK on Tuesday. The 15-gate facility comes as the airport is on the cusp of recovering to its 2019 passenger numbers with US domestic ahead and only international lagging pre-pandemic levels, Greater Orlando Aviation Authority CEO Kevin Thibault said. He expects annual traffic numbers to surpass the 51m passengers that Orlando handled three years ago early next year as international travel recovers further. But that recovery comes with what few may realize: The current terminal complex was designed for about half the number of travelers that passed through its gates in 2019. Opened on September 20, 1981, the current terminal was built out in 1989 and its airsides completed in 2000. The airport has outgrown those facilities as the Orlando region has continued to grow as both a destination — Disney World, enough said — and origin market. “If we were at that same [recovery] pace internationally [as domestically], we would be over 53m passengers going through a terminal that was designed for 24 [million],” Thibault said. The airport has accommodated the traffic growth with tweaks and changes to its existing facilities but without the major capital expansion that Terminal C represents.<br/>