SRQ passenger traffic on the decline because of the novel coronavirus threat
Sarasota Bradenton International Airport has been on a record-setting tear for passenger traffic the past year, but, not surprisingly, the novel coronavirus threat seems to be applying the brakes.
“It’s down about 20 percent from what we expected,” Rick Piccolo, airport president and CEO, said Tuesday of passenger traffic.
Although no flights have been canceled, planes are no longer as full.
As recently as February, SRQ set a record with 232,549 passengers traveling through the terminal. Passenger traffic was up 54 percent in February over the same month in 2019.
The airport has nine airlines serving 38 destinations with Allegiant being the spark plug for all the growth.
“Flights are still coming but they are not as full, particularly on the early morning flights. A lot of businesses aren’t flying right now,” Piccolo said.
In addition to the stepped up cleaning of rails, buttons and other surface areas at the SRQ terminal to cope with the pandemic, other measures may be coming to navigate a possible looming economic slowdown.
Among them: cutting overtime, freezing hiring and delaying smaller projects.
Even with the pandemic, passenger traffic for March may be greater than the same month last year.
Predicting traffic in April and May seems more problematic.
“It’s such a fluid situation,” Piccolo said.
Piccolo has seen other crisis situations before, including the SARS outbreak, the Influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in 2009, the pullout of AirTran, and the Great Recession of 2008.
But the novel coronavirus pandemic is unlike anything else that preceded it in recent history.
Fortunately, SRQ is debt free and has a good operating reserve, Piccolo said.
“We are kind of battle tested here at SRQ,” he said.
