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THIRD TIME LUCKY MCO Moving Toward 2022 Opening Of South Terminal BY DAVID WARD
Above: Among the innovations in the new MCO South Terminal is a new baggage-handling system that delivers luggage to the top floor, enabling arriving travelers to immediately experience the sunshine and greenery the Orlando area is famous for.
hough it can be hard to see beyond the disruptions caused by COVID19, Orlando International Airport (MCO) is hard at work on its postpandemic future, with construction of a new $2.7 billion South Terminal still moving forward in anticipation of an early 2022 completion. Phil Brown, CEO of the Greater Orlando Airport Authority (GOAA) says this is actually the authority’s third attempt at a new terminal in the last 21 years, noting the earlier plans, both driven by leisure travel and one involving a separate international terminal, were delayed due to first 9/11 and then the Great Recession. “This time around we were experiencing growth in both leisure and business travel
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and were facing a lack of gates for airlines to expand in Orlando,” Brown says. “We were tracking in February to be on pace for 51 million annual passengers in 2020, so we were over capacity and our growth projections.” The new South Terminal is the cornerstone of the $4.2 billion, multi-year MCO Capital Improvement Program, although GOAA scaled back parts of the overall project in May 2020 to reflect the expected multi-year impact of the COVID19 pandemic. The $3 billion original cost for terminal was cut by $226 million, with most of the cost savings coming from a reduction in gates from 19 to 15, eliminating the need to build an additional wing on the new terminal.
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