Unless you travel for business, if you’re a Disney fan, chances are most of your flights end up at MCO (or LAX), and there’s a reason why the long-standing joke of calling MCO the “Mouse’s Corporate Office” still exists: families and groups traveling to Walt Disney World comprise a huge portion of flights.
With passenger traffic at Orlando International Airport down by 97%, companies like Southwest Airlines are scrambling to fill seats inside their airplanes. In a recent article by USA Today, it was revealed that Southwest only filled 6% of its seats in April, a number that isn’t expected to surpass 10% for the month of May.
In an interview with CNBC, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly stated that traffic levels are “next to zero at this point.” He emphasized the need for attractions to reopen and new safety measures to be implemented across airports and inside aircraft.
“They need to have something to be able to do when they get there. So Disney World needs to open back up. Restaurants need to open back up.”
Travelers need to have a substantive reason to travel, plus they need to feel safe. Heightened health and safety protocol, such as wearing face masks, using hand sanitizer, preliminary testing at TSA checkpoints, plexiglass partitions at all service desks, personal protection equipment kits for passengers, and spacing out seating arrangements inside planes all need to be implemented over the next few months in order for airlines to financially recover.
Given the unprecedented rate of trip cancellations, Southwest may be seeing some downsizing if things don’t improve by July. Other airline CEOs like Ed Bastian of Delta claim that financial recovery for airlines may take as long as three years.
