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Ten days ago, the parking garage at the Burlington International Airport was 92% full. Wednesday, it was nearly empty, at only 5% capacity.
“The garage usually tells you how things are going at the airport,” said Gene Richards, the airport’s director of aviation.
Like many institutions and people in Vermont, the airport has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. The state has seen an exponential growth in cases, and with individuals social distancing and the state under a “stay home” order, the numbers of passengers at the airport have dwindled.
Richards said the virus has been “a disaster” for the airport’s finances.
“Everybody from the airlines, to every concessionaire, to the rental cars has basically stopped doing business,” he said. “We get our revenue from their revenue, so it’s not good.”
Airlines have slashed the number of flights they are offering during the pandemic, and some flights coming into the airport have just six people on them, Richards said.
“What they’re doing is, where there were three flights a day, now there’s one flight a day,” he said. “And I would say, soon, probably no flights a day for some.”
The airport has gone from 16,000 to 17,000 passengers a week to around 2,000, Richards said.
There are five major carriers who fly out of Burlington: American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue and United Airlines.
While some other airports around the world have installed medical screening for passengers, Richards said there were no plans to do so at the airport as airport staff are not equipped to run a screening program. The Department of Health would have to institute and operate the screening program, he said.
“Our people don’t have the tools, it’s nothing that the industry has adjusted to yet,” he said. “The one reason is it’s not what we’re trained to do.”
While it’s clear the virus spreads as people travel, Richards said that only the Federal Aviation Administration has the authority to close the airport. The FAA has no plans to do so, Richards said, and noted that some of the airport’s operations include cargo flights, which could bring medical supplies.
Richards said he was taking steps to cut airport spending to address the upcoming budget shortfalls caused by the pandemic. For example, Richards said he cancelled $500,000 in planned parking garage repairs. The airport annual budget is about $20 million.
“Anything that comes across my desk, that I have discretion on, I will cut,” Richards said. “I want to keep the facilities up, I’m going to maintain things. But I’m going to be aggressive on any cuts that I can make, to make sure that our community survives this.”
Richards has also been in contact with the developers of the planned five-story, 108-room Fairfield by Marriott hotel at the airport that had been set to break ground in March before a delay last month to an anticipated groundbreaking this summer.
“We really want to make sure that our community heals, and that everybody is functioning at a level that that hotel would be deserving to be there,” he said. “We don’t want to build something if we don’t have the demand for it.”
Don Wells, the developer of the hotel, is on the same page, Richards said.
Richards has been keeping an eye on the federal stimulus package, and said he believed the airport could receive $7 million as part of that deal. While the Senate has approved a $2 trillion economic stimulus to fight the pandemic, it has not yet passed in the House.
The economic downturn caused by the pandemic could have lingering effects on air travel — and thus, the airport’s budget, Richards said.
“There is nobody that’s not affected in some way by this,” he said. “So what will the budget be for businesses, what will it be for the traveling public? My gut is less.”
Most airport staff are working from home, with only one operations staffer and two or three maintenance employees coming in each shift, Richards said. Police officers and TSA employees also continue to work at the airport.
Richards said he has given the airport’s concessionaires, like the restaurant Skinny Pancake, the OK to stop services during the pandemic.
“I have given authorization for everybody to leave and not hold them to their contract,” he said. “Safety comes first. The bottom line is, this is not about money, this is about life. And that’s why we are taking the drastic measures that we are.”
