Orlando airport is broken and nobody seems to care
Orlando International Airport is Orlando’s gateway for millions of visitors to Central Florida. In the past, that was something we all could be proud of. Our airport was always on the list of airports offering the best passenger experience. Not anymore.
Terminals A and B, which were designed to handle no more than 36 million passengers annually, handled more than 50 million passengers in 2022, and more in 2023. As a result, those terminals are breaking down, starting outside in the parking lots and at the arrival and departure curbs, and continuing inside in the hold rooms, restrooms, and ancillary facilities. When Terminal C opened, there was no plan to balance the passenger traffic between the two terminals. Almost two years later, that traffic has still not been balanced. As a result, Terminals A and B cannot handle their current passenger traffic and are not being properly staffed, operated or maintained. This led directly to my recent experience at the airport.
I arrived on a Delta flight that landed at 12:10 a.m. on Saturday, March 9. The pilot announced that we were 10 feet from the gate, but needed ground personnel with the lighted wands to guide the aircraft in. We waited 20 minutes for that to happen. Then, the pilot announced that the loading bridge was not operating properly and needed to be fixed so that it could line up with the door of the aircraft. That took another 30 minutes, allowing my fellow passengers and me to exit the aircraft at 1 a.m.
I am a 78-year-old man who decided that since the aircraft had landed, I could wait to use a restroom in the terminal rather than getting up while the plane was short of the gate and the pilot had announced that all passengers should remain seated. I had not planned for a 50-minute delay before I could get off the plane. That meant that when I was finally able to exit the aircraft, I really needed to pee! I ran to the first restroom only to find it closed. I ran to the next restroom only to find a line of six men waiting to do the same thing that I needed to do. My wife has often complained about the unacceptable long lines at the women’s bathrooms at the airport. This was the first time that I encountered the same thing at a men’s room and it was about 1:10 a.m. Needless to say, I was greatly relieved, pun certainly intended, when it was my turn to use a urinal.
I got to bag claim about 1:40 a.m. The first bags from my plane started to arrive 20 minutes later. When the bag claim device was finally turned on, it stopped immediately. When the operator tried to turn it back on, it would make a “beep beep beep” sound, and then turn itself off. This happened repeatedly.
Finally, an employee showed up and started speaking into a portable radio.
I got his attention and pointed out that Delta had two other bag claim devices that could be used to deliver our bags. That employee seemed surprised by my suggestion, but shortly thereafter the bags from my plane started to arrive on one of Delta’s other devices. However, that device quickly stopped because of a baggage jam, and it took additional employees about 10 minutes to clear the jam.
My bags finally arrived after 2 a.m. However, given my “good” fortune, the morning I arrived was the end of daylight savings time, so 2 a.m. instantly became 3 a.m.
I exited bag claim and found the departure curb quite congested at 3 a.m. I called an Uber, and when it arrived it had to wait to find curb space so it could pick me up. I finally arrived at my home at 4 a.m. There were a lot of other passengers on my plane who had essentially the same experience that I had.
Is this the “Orlando experience” we want our residents and visitors to have when they arrive at Orlando International Airport? To ask this question is to answer it. The harder question is why no one in authority seems to care.