Passenger traffic was already on the rise at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport at the start of 2020, but the coronavirus changed everything. COVID-19 impacted all sectors of the economy, but travel took a particular blow. At an airport that saw just under 2 million passenger flights in 2019, traffic in April of 2020 dropped to less than 10,000 passengers, the bulk of those leaving town. “THE THOUGHT WAS HOW DO WE GET THROUGH THAT?” recalls SRQ airport CEO Fredrick Piccolo.
“How can we cut back as much as possible?” But that was then. Less than two years later, there’s greater traffic than ever before. Airlines who stopped flights to Sarasota years ago have once again charted courses to the landing strips at SRQ. A new terminal is under construction as part of a $60-million expansion and Sarasota has become the envy of the aviation universe. “The growth at SRQ has been phenomenal,” Piccolo said. “We’re the fastest growing airport in the United States, if not in the world. Traffic is up 150% over last year, and yes it was a COVID year, but for us, the numbers didn’t really go down.” Well, a close look at the numbers does show total traffic dropped from 1.96 million passenger flights in 2019 to 1.24 million in 2020, but that type of decline is nothing compared to what many airports around the globe suffered. While SRQ traffic declined 37%, traffic in and out of Atlanta International Airport declined by almost 43%. At the Miami International Airport, it dropped 59%. Regardless, by the time 2021 began, the airport remained healthy with steady growth in flights. Not a single employee of the airport was ever laid off — private airlines don’t disclose their location-specific layoffs — but Piccolo had airlines calling about how to add routes into the facility. In September, the airport surpassed 2 million passenger flights for the year for the first time in its history with three months of travelers yet to lift off. Piccolo recalls that just three years ago, the airport felt comfortable closing the year with just under 1.4 million passenger flights. Now the airport executive in November was hoping to reach 2.5 million passengers through the airport before the end of the calendar year. So what spurred this? Piccolo said it’s hard to ignore Florida’s statewide policies in response to the pandemic. While Florida, like many states, entered a month-down lockdown in the spring of 2020, it quickly began a reopening process. Governor Ron DeSantis in September of 2020 announced a major marketing campaign funded through Visit Florida to encourage in-state travel, and the policies of Florida were highly publicized in national media as far less limited than other states. While DeSantis withered criticism from public health advocates on national airwaves, business leaders in a state where tourism serves as the number 1 industry heralded the move.
Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota, said this market benefitted as well because so many amenities here are outdoors. From beaches to popular kayaking routes, eco-tourism became more popular than ever as travelers sought ways to get out of their homes without going to destinations with indoor entertainment, environments more at risk of seeing virus infections spread. Piccolo said that spurred a spike in recreational tourism. “In the early socially distanced days, we had plenty of beaches, golf, fishing, just a lot of outdoor activities. The fact that the Governor kept our state open brought huge economic activity. And as you and I both know, this place is wonderful. This place is paradise.” But what’s most shocking about the growth at SRQ airport is that it has exceeded the expansions happening anywhere in Florida or beyond. That has to do with the type of travel the airport relies on now more than ever. The Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association announced that the tourism industry in Florida expected to see a $5.3 billion loss in business travel for 2021, which has delivered consequences across the state even as recreational travel returned to Florida in force the same year. That loss in business conventions and trips represents the second largest loss in the nation. “Sarasota is a little different than many areas of the state because it has always been dominated by leisure travel,” Haley said. From October 2020 through September, Sarasota County collected $27.6 million
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