Orlando Airport Sees Record-Breaking CROWDS in 2023

If you’re traveling to Orlando from more than a few hours away, chances are that you’re flying.

And if you’re flying into Orlando, you’re probably visiting MCO — the Orlando International Airport. It’s the largest airport in the area and it sees MILLIONS of passengers per year. (So many, in fact, that they just added a new terminal!) But this year, things got even busier.

According to the Orlando Business Journal, MCO had a significant uptick in the number of travelers this year. For the rolling 12-month cycle ending in June, the airport’s passenger traffic reached 54.6 million. That’s an increase of 12.4% from the same time last year, when the passenger traffic was calculated at 48.57 million.

Why is this important? Well, an increase in air traffic means good things for the tourism industry in Central Florida, including hotel bookings, theme park visits, and restaurant patronage. But on a more individual level, it also means that the airport is getting more crowded. It’s a fact you may have noticed if you’ve traveled multiple times in the past few years.

For the calendar year to date, MCO has had 28.96 million passengers, up 17.83% from 24.57 million for the same time last year. MCO attributes this to a few new airline routes that have become available, as well as some old flights that have returned to service.

With the rolling 12-month total that we mentioned earlier, domestic travel made up for 48 million of those 54.6 million passengers. That’s an increase of 11% over last year. International travel made up 6.52 million travelers, up 72.3% from 3.78 million last year. The airport had an average of 1024 flights per day.

So if you’re heading to MCO to travel soon, expect things to be a little more crowded than they were last year. We’ll be interested to see how these increasing numbers impact airport operations as we head out of the summer travel boom, but then back into holiday travel later this year.

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