COVID-19 forces major cutbacks at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport
In the face of the many unknowns posed by the coronavirus pandemic and the steep decline in business, Rick Piccolo, CEO of Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, outlined Monday a series of harsh cutbacks made to keep SRQ afloat.
“We all know that airlines are the straw that stirs the drink or the major factor affecting a trend or set of developments,” Piccolo told members of the Manatee Sarasota Airport Authority.
Between March 16 and 18, a number of carriers made announcements concerning draconian cuts to their service levels system-wide, including cuts ranging 20 percent to 80 percent, depending on the airline and service.
These numbers continue to evolve and further reductions are not out of the question. As one example Air Canada, which was scheduled to operate here through April, ceases service in two days., Piccolo said.
The airport will waive fixed rental charges to airlines for hold room, apron, ticket office, queuing, and operations offices for the period April 1- June 30.
“We will continue to charge for variable fees such as common use charges, non-preferential gate uses, and landing fees. This is estimated to cost the airport approximately $550,000 over the three-month period and hopefully is helpful to all our signatory partners,” Piccolo said.
The airport authority will waive office and operations space rent for non-signatory carriers for three months, April – June. This is a cost of about $36,000.
The authority will also waive operational space rent for three months for ground handlers. This is a $20,600 hit.
“The airlines need the ground handlers and I fear without some relief these companies would go out of business and we would have no ground handling services available here. As you can see this is about a $600,000 planned revenue reduction over the three-month period from our airline group,” Piccolo said.
Presently, airport parking volume is only less than 5 percent of capacity at a time when the airport should be in an overflow situation. These revenues will take a significant hit as well.
Valet parking and the shade parking lot will be temporarily closed. Shuttle bus service to/from the long-term parking lot will be temporarily suspended.
Employee overtime has been halted, and construction projects not already started have been put on hold.
“Commissioners, as I said three weeks ago, we were looking at how best we keep up with the unprecedented increases in traffic. Today we are dealing with our plan to keep the airport operating in the black. I anticipate that airport revenues will be about $1 million less per month than budgeted for at least the next three months” Piccolo said.
“There is a chance we can ride this out for a short period without tremendous damage to our budget if the system comes back by August at a reasonable pace. My gut tells me it will take at least two-three years to get back to where we were at a minimum,” he said.
This story was originally published March 23, 2020 at 4:11 PM.
