After a year of staying close to home during the pandemic, Americans exercised their freedom of travel this Memorial Day holiday.
This Memorial Day holiday travel pushed traffic figures at Orlando International Airport (MCO) to near pre-pandemic levels.
Over 360,000 travelers departed MCO during the six-day holiday period as compared to only 55,000 last year. That is a nearly 500 percent increase. When compared to 2019 record levels, Memorial Day traffic at MCO was off 12 percent.
“This strong kickoff to the summer travel season is encouraging,” says Phil Brown, Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.
“However, the key for our long term success is how sustainable these traffic levels will be over the summer.”
Further destination expansion and seat capacity growth by the airlines is helping to build sustainable traffic numbers.
Starting June 2, MCO will welcome its first transatlantic flight back to Central Florida since the pandemic when Lufthansa resumes limited operations with federal restrictions from Germany.
Memorial Day 2021 Traffic Numbers
| 2019 Departures | 2020 Departures | 2021 Departures | |
| Thursday, May 27 | 69,893 | 9,373 | 55,159 |
| Friday, May 28 | 72,881 | 9,375 | 61,050 |
| Saturday, May 29 | 68,647 | 6,732 | 59,691 |
| Sunday, May 30 | 62,342 | 8,465 | 60,826 |
| Monday, May 31 | 70,182 | 12,454 | 64,499 |
| Tuesday, June 1 | 65,419 | 8,389 | 58,801 |
| TOTALS | 409,364 | 54,788 | 360,026 |
