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Orlando Surpassed Miami


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Uhh, yeah.

While you're at it why not add in the passenger figures for West Palm [PBI] and Key West [EYW]...

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Brickell is right, though. Much of the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale metro area uses FLL for domestic flights and MIA for American Airlines and interntional flights. It's very similar to the situation in New York, where historically JFK has been the airport for widebody international flights while LGA is used mostly for domestic flights. The scenes in both Miami and New York are beginning to change, however, with more low-cost carriers breaking into MIA and JFK to offer more domestic flights.

FLL is only 20 miles from downtown Miami, which is almost the same distance from downtown Denver to Denver International Airpot (DEN), so there is no question that it deserves to be considered as the Miami metro's 2nd airport. Comparing it Key West's airport is apples and oranges.

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Brickell is right, though. Much of the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale metro area uses FLL for domestic flights and MIA for American Airlines and interntional flights. It's very similar to the situation in New York, where historically JFK has been the airport for widebody international flights while LGA is used mostly for domestic flights. The scenes in both Miami and New York are beginning to change, however, with more low-cost carriers breaking into MIA and JFK to offer more domestic flights.

FLL is only 20 miles from downtown Miami, which is almost the same distance from downtown Denver to Denver International Airpot (DEN), so there is no question that it deserves to be considered as the Miami metro's 2nd airport. Comparing it Key West's airport is apples and oranges.

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This is only partially true.

United Airlines and Delta have a significant domestic presence at MIA. MIA also has reasonable LCC service [Low Cost Carriers] such as AirTran.

Still though, Ft, Lauderdale is, in-and-of-itself, a large city and much of FLLs traffic is from Ft. Lauderdale.

Using that line of reasoning we should then take MCO [Orlando], SFB [Orlando-Sanford], MLB [Melbourne], and DAB [Daytona Beach] which covers about the same geographic area as does MIA+FLL, then add up the respective passenger counts and divide by the total population for each area, which would look something, roughly, like this:

MCO [32,000,000] SFB [2,200,000] DAB [600,000 ] MLB [500,000] = 35.3 million

Combined population of Orlando, Daytona and Melbourne = 2,750,000 = 2.75/35.3 = 12.84

MIA [30,000,000] FLL [16,500,000] = 46.5 million

Combined population of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale 5,100,000 = 46.5/5.1 = 9.12

See! Orlando is still bigger, better, and badder!

Seriously, when you get strictly into numbers they can be manipulated in so many ways as to prove or support just about any argument.

MIA has significantly better service to Europe and South America, MCO has significantly better service to the U.S. [more non-stop destinations, more frequencies]

The people at MCO [iMHO] need to look at improving service to Europe and bolstering domestic airlines that offer full service such as business or first class considering the recent onslaught of coach-only LCCs.

If Orlando wants to seriously improve its image beyond being a tourist destination then it has to offer significant accommodations for the business traveler as well.

Again, as with all of these discussions, it is a three-dimensional issue, not a two-dimensional "mine-is-bigger" pissing contest.

One absolutely undeniable fact however is that MCO has significantly more room to grow and expand whereas both MIA and FLL are pretty much at capacity right now and are hemmed in by significant development thus thwarting any kind of real expansion possibilities.

I am absolutely amazed that the FAA allowed MIA to squeeze that new and short arrivals runway into what was formerly a maintenance and cargo alley!

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Using that line of reasoning we should then take MCO [Orlando], SFB [Orlando-Sanford], MLB [Melbourne], and DAB [Daytona Beach] which covers about the same geographic area as does MIA+FLL, then add up the respective passenger counts and divide by the total population for each area, which would look something, roughly, like this:

MCO [32,000,000] SFB [2,200,000] DAB [600,000 ] MLB [500,000] = 35.3 million

Combined population of Orlando, Daytona and Melbourne = 2,750,000 = 2.75/35.3 = 12.84

MIA [30,000,000] FLL [16,500,000] = 46.5 million

Combined population of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale 5,100,000 = 46.5/5.1 = 9.12

See! Orlando is still bigger, better, and badder!

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No. DAB is a 53 mile (52 minutes in <ahem> ideal traffic conditions) drive from downtown Orlando, and MLB is a 70 mile drive (1 hour, 6 minute) drive from downtown Orlando. This hardly compares to the 24 mile (30 minute) drive from FLL to downtown Miami. Not only that, but neither Daytona Beach nor Melbourne are included in Orlando's metro area. The only other commercial airport in metro Orlando besides MCO is SFB and its effect is negligible. I don't know why you insist that FLL is not a secondary Miami airport. That would be akin to saying that Newark International should not be considered to be one of New York City's major airports. It's half an hour away! How can it not be?

By the way, FLL handled 20.81 million passengers in 2004, not 16.5 million. And it's not up to the MCO administration to attract more--as you say--full service airlines that emphasize their business and first classes. Being that the majority of Central Florida's visitors are budget-oriented tourists rathern than business travelers, carriers tend to use planes configured for maximum capacity with limited premium service. This will change when the city of Orlando establishes itself as a more diverse market, but it's up to the carriers to change their configurations.

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No. DAB is a 53 mile (52 minutes in <ahem> ideal traffic conditions) drive from downtown Orlando, and MLB is a 70 mile drive (1 hour, 6 minute) drive from downtown Orlando. This hardly compares to the 24 mile (30 minute) drive from FLL to downtown Miami.

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Hmm, you sure about that? You realize that FLLs market pull doesn

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MCO [32,000,000] SFB [2,200,000] DAB [600,000 ] MLB [500,000] = 35.3 million

Combined population of Orlando, Daytona and Melbourne = 2,750,000 = 2.75/35.3 = 12.84

MIA [30,000,000] FLL [16,500,000] = 46.5 million

Combined population of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale 5,100,000 = 46.5/5.1 = 9.12

See! Orlando is still bigger, better, and badder!

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You forgot PBI's 6.5 million passengers.

You'll probably bring in Jacksonville and Tampa for that, but Palm Beach is a part of Miami's Metro area and is an option for people even in Miami. I live in southern Miami (Kendall) and I always fly out of FLL. I don't know many Orlandoans that would say that about Sanford, Daytona or Melbourne. They just don't have the options.

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^ Just to add another personal testimony, when I lived in (southern) Miami, I flew out of FLL at least 80% of the time. Now that I live in Orlando (near Sanford), I use MCO 100% of the time. There is no comparison between Sanford(much less Daytona and Brevard) and FLL as far as attracting regional traffic is concerned.

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You people are absolutely killing me.

Orlando's economy with regard to passengers flying out of MCO is no less diverse than Miami's (MIA passengers) with respect to the ratio of business travellers to tourists:

Read this article:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=181780

25% of MIA's passengers are business travellers.

20% of MCO's are business travellers.

31 million to 33 million roughly computes to about 7.75 million to 6.6 million business travellers.

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Wow, look at all this hostility. I never realized there was this deep-rooted hostility between Orlando and Miami. I'm a Dallas resident and don't have a dog in this fight but would like to add a couple of comments.

Obvious, Orlando's airport is much larger than the Miami area airports. Why? Well every American family has to travel to Orlando once or twice to go to Disney or Universal and most fly there to do it. It really shouldn't be surprising.

I've been to Miami 3 times in the last 3 years. Every time it reduced my ticket price by 40% to fly into FLL instead of MIA. Not only is it much cheaper but it's easier and more pleasant to get in and out of. The discount carriers (Southwest, Jet Blue, AirTran) ONLY fly into FLL because MIA's fees are too high. MIA, in fact, is struggling and there's a lot of controversy over this right now. Whether or not PBI should count is irrelevant, it's small and an expensive airport to use.

MIA does well to function as a hub to Latin America and the Caribbean but otherwise is an end-destination. Geographically, it's too far Southeast to function as any kind of domestic hub. Hey, though, that's what makes it such a tourist destination in the first place.

New Orleans is a big tourist city and there airport is smaller than one would think and a relative dead end as well.

-------------------------------------------------------

You Orlando people failed to mention the convention business. Orlando really is able to host some of the largest conventions in the country. The American Society for Clinical Oncology, which I and 30,000 others attend every year - can only be held in Atlanta, Chicago, or Orlando now because of hotel and convention space constraints.

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*is going way off topic*

LA can handle it as well.  I had a convention there in May with 77,000 others.

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For whatever reason the large national conventions rarely go to LA, probably because it has a smaller amt of convention space. New Orleans and Las Vegas are also big convention sites but there is a bit of a hotel shortage in NO. Miami is a relatively under

The reason ASCO likes Orlando so much is that hotel prices are so cheap, there are so many hotels they don't really drive up prices as much as you do in most cities. It has 121,000 hotel rooms nearby compared to 33,000 in New Orleans - another big tourist spot and popular convention locale.

Anyway, here are the sizes of the exposition halls. I'm not sure but I believe that Orlando may now have the nation's largest.

Los Angeles Convention Center = 770,000 SF

Orange County (FL) CC = 2.1 million SF

Miami Beach CC - 500,000 SF

New Orleans 1.1 million SF

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Orlando's Orange County Convention Center is the second largest in the U.S. Chicago holds the top spot with its McCormick Place, which happens to be the second largest in the world.

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I looked it up - Chicago has over 3 million SF of convention space. :whistling: Supposedly our convention has to rotate only between Chicago and Orlando from now on due to constraints of space.

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Wrong.

AirTran [and HP [America West]] fly into MIA.

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I didn't realize Air Tran did, generally they follow the pattern of JetBlue and Southwest. Since there may not be an ATA much longer, I guess it may not matter. There was a big article in the Herald a couple months ago about how MIA had stagnated and FLL was booming because of discount carriers. Part of the problem apparently is tied into the last MIA expansion there are tons of fees and extra costs passed on to the airlines and passengers that don't exist at FLL (which also has really expanded, so I didn't quite understand). Apparently now FLL is at capacity and has asked to open another runway and this is causing some issues with residents of Dania Beach in terms of noise control. Another proposal was to force cruise passengers to go to MIA instead of FLL but I don't understand how they could do that.

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McCormick Place has 2.2 million square feet of expo space. They are currently undergoing an 800,000 ft2 expansion.

It doesn't matter, though. OCCC can easily expand the north/south bldg due east with minimal cost, as it was designed to be able to double its size using existing infrastructure. But Orlando needs more hotel rooms within walking distance to justify that expansion or the latest one.

McCormick has to expand. Just like Chicago needs to build another world's tallest bldg. b/c if they don't do that, they're not relevent in the eyes of the rest of the country or the world. its the "second city" ego thing they've had for decades.

Orlando kicks every other city's butt w/re to hotel rooms except for Vegas. Vegas is an anomaly. So is Orlando, for that matter.

MIA is not a small airport-- its got over 100 gates just like MCO. In fact, it may have more gates. MCO is designed like TPA's terminal, except much bigger. Its an efficient design which had the advantage of being built in the early '80's, kind of like Hartsfield in the late'70's. All these older airports like O'Hare and MIA and JFK and LAX have terminals that are way older, and their designs aren't as efficient.

There's no hostility towards Miami by any forumers that I can tell. I think its moreso Miami forumers who have the "get over it" attitude b/c Orlandoans are intrigued (to say the least) that MCO surpassed MIA in passenger traffic and will continue to do so.

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I really don't swing one way or the other on this discussion, but I did want to reply to the last comment, regarding older airports in dense cities.

MCO has a more efficient layout, because its located on the outskirts of town with hundreds of acres set aside to spread its operations out and expand. Many of those older airports you mentioned, are located in dense cities that don't have the space to allow for spreaout airports like MCO and ATL.

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  • 4 months later...

OSI does the charter international flights with a handful of domestic carriers. www.orlandosanfordairport.com (I think)

ORD's first terminal was built in 1962 (I think) and is at least 16 miles from downtown in the suburbs. Everyone moved to the suburbs, thus landlocking ORD.

MIA is only 5 or so miles from downtown, if that. It was built on the fringes of the city limits, but the industrial parks that heavily utilize the cargo terminal have grown and surround it.

ORD's design is similar to JFK, MIA, Newark Intl., LAX to some extent, etc...

The advent of the AGT really influenced airport design and retrofitting. ORD and DFW both built AGT's after the fact. So did JFK (maybe others too).

AIrports like TIA and MCO are more efficient b/c airside and landside is seperated and all landside's are consolidated into one (or two, in MCO's case with "A" and "B"), instead of having an A/S and L/S for every single terminal.

$.02

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I really don't swing one way or the other on this discussion, but I did want to reply to the last comment, regarding older airports in dense cities.

MCO has a more efficient layout, because its located on the outskirts of town with hundreds of acres set aside to spread its operations out and expand. Many of those older airports you mentioned, are located in dense cities that don't have the space to allow for spreaout airports like MCO and ATL.

Your last statement would have been true 10 years ago. Yes, MCO has land set aside for expansion, but outside it's immediate property is almost surrounded by development on 3 sides. The east of the airport is now the outskirts of town.

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^I don't understand what point you're trying to make. MCO was an already established military base, with thousands of acres before any surrounding developments were built. So when it was converted into a passenger airport it already had the advantage of thousands of acres for future expansion allowing for a more efficient design. On the other hand, older airports in denser cities like Boston's Logan or MIA have been surrounding by development for decades.

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