ORLANDO, Fla. – Spring break crowds, bad weather and crowded skies all combined this past weekend to produce a major travel mess at the Orlando International Airport.
From Saturday night to Sunday night, 351 flights were delayed, most of them Southwest Airlines planes and 133 flights were canceled, according to MCO’s website.
By Monday morning, delays and cancellations had vastly improved with airlines getting back on track. But this is just the beginning. Three of the top 10 busiest spring break travel days fall on this upcoming weekend, according to MCO.
Southwest Airlines spokesperson Chris Perry said Southwest has the “largest percent of market share at Orlando with nearly 160 scheduled departures on Sundays in March and 180 scheduled departures on Saturdays in March.”
“Those figures represent our peak schedule at MCO to boost service for spring break travelers,” Perry said. “Over the past weekend, weather and air traffic flow programs affected the national airspace system, with specific attention on Florida, resulting in service disruptions for all air carriers. To protect our entire network of travelers – by far the largest domestic network in the airline industry – on the first weekend of spring break, we made some schedule adjustments to our Orlando operation. Our operations are normal today across our network with minimal disruption at this time. We thank our customers for their patience over the weekend and our employees continue to work tirelessly to connect them to what’s important in their lives.”
Angela Starke, MCO Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and Community Relations, said a “strong line of storms across the Gulf affected departures and arrivals.”
“Passengers who were impacted by the weather are working with their individual airlines,” Starke said. “Based on conversations with our airline partners, all passengers who were impacted by the weather delays and cancellations have been rebooked. We are fully staffed and have been for several days now in anticipation of spring break travel.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been notoriously short-staffed, especially in Air Traffic Control towers, often leading to limiting airspace traffic and adding to delays.
What is the FAA doing about the cascading delays?
News 6 asked FAA Public Affairs Specialist Crystal Essiaw three questions:
- What does the FAA see as the problem this weekend?
- For the traveling public planning to fly over Spring Break, does the FAA anticipate this will persist or improve over the next few weeks?
- And what can the traveling public do about it, if anything?
Essaiw responded with a single sentence:
“For real-time air traffic updates please see: https://nasstatus.faa.gov/.” Essaiw did not respond to a follow-up email from News 6.
So what can you do?
Experts at Going.com, a travel site dedicated to helping people save on airfare, offered these travel hacks:
Before traveling if you can:
- Look to take a morning flight as morning flights have a 25 percentage point higher on-time arrival than afternoon or evening flights since things like weather and late planes can affect your trip as the day goes on.
- Try to fly direct when possible since dealing with delayed direct flights is far easier -- you just get to your destination later. If you get delayed on a connection, there may not be tons of options left for you to reposition yourself.
Day of travel:
- Don’t wait to start seeing what your options are once you hear the flight is significantly delayed or canceled since it is first come first serve for rebooking. When everyone jumps in the customer service line, you do as well, but you also check to see what other flight options are to have handy and even self-change if the option is available through the airline app or website.
- Call the international phone line for the airlines if available. While everyone is flooding the domestic line, you can often get through to an agent on an alternate international line where those customer service agents will help you just the same.
Starke encouraged passengers “to check with their airline to determine if their flight will depart/arrive on time” and offered these tips:
- Follow 3-2-1. Arrive at your airline ticket counter at least 3 hours in advance. Head to security processing at least 2 hours prior to departure and arrive at your gate at least 1 hour prior to boarding. Also, always remember to pack your patience and never bring weapons through the security checkpoint.
- As MCO continues to welcome record numbers of travelers, parking can be at a premium. A portion of the passenger increase is attributed to local residents. Population growth in Central Florida means more residents are using the airport. This increase has emphasized the need for more parking. MCO has three new surface lots to respond to parking needs. The lots are accessible with E-Pass and SunPass Plus. SunPass customers must be enrolled with Easy Pay, and a transponder must be used to enter and exit the lots.
- Lastly, a new Reserved Parking program works by allowing passengers to log in to Reserved Parking at MCO or use the MCO mobile app in advance of their arrival to the airport, punch in their vehicle information, make a payment and receive a QR code for easy access to Level 4 of Parking Garage C. Currently, the program is only operational in Garage C on Level 4. Space is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis for approximately 715 spots during the rollout of this program. The cost is $32 per day.
MCO said nearly 200,000 passengers will pass through the airport every day from now through Easter. MCO predicted the busiest-ever spring break travel period after a record-setting 2023.
Late last year, the Federal Department of Transportation fined Southwest Airlines a record $140 million, largely to send a message after Southwest’s meltdown in 2022.
The DOT said $90 million of that fine is supposed to go towards reimbursing Southwest passengers for future delays, if the airline is at fault.
Unfortunately weather doesn’t count.
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