If you’re coming to Disney World, there’s one BIG thing that you might do before starting your vacation… .
Orlando International Airport
What’s that? Well, you might fly into MCO — the Orlando International Airport! It’s an incredibly popular travel stop for those heading to the Central Florida theme parks, and it’s typically pretty crowded with tourists. But how does it stack up with other airports? We just found out.
According to WFTV 9, more guests flew in and out of MCO last year than any other airport in the state of Florida. To be exact, 40.3 million passengers traveled through the airport in 2021, which is more than an 86% increase from 2020. That’s a HUGE jump!
Orlando International Airport
It was expected originally that the Orlando International Airport would take longer to recover from the pandemic, but a rise in tourism last year and other factors appeared to have helped boost those numbers quickly. In fact, MCO now ranks as the seventh busiest airport in all of the United States. (Previously it was ninth on the list.)
Officials have indicated that in 2021 “domestic travel jumped 92% over 2020 and international travel increased 20.5%.”
Orlando International Airport
Numbers are still down, however, compared to 2019 in terms of pure passenger numbers. In 2019, the airport say 50.6 million travelers. But still the recovery has been impressive. In a statement, the Chairman of the Greater Orlando Avaiation Authority said, “I expect 2022 to be another year of growth for Orlando and the region.”
We’re definitely interested to see what these numbers are like as we go through 2022. So far this year, we’ve seen incredibly busy theme parks, so 2022 might in fact result in big growth at the airport.
Airport
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One hint for those that don’t mind an extra few or more mins to your airport commute. My family and I now fly into Tampa because of how busy and crazy Orlando has become. We just take a couple days on the beach at clear water then drive to Disney world that is at most 1 1/2 from the Tampa airport.
Traveled to Orlando for WDW in January. First time for both. The airport is horrible. Signage is very bad. On the way home we had a hard time finding our way to TSA ( don’t get me started on that nightmare). Travel makes me nervous anyway but this- was beyond. I guess I should have studied an airport map before going. That’s on me.