WORCESTER – The Worcester Regional Airport logged a record year, surpassing pre-COVID passenger numbers.
In 2023, more than 204,000 travelers flew in and out of the airport. Additionally, in April 2023, JetBlue announced the addition of two Florida routes to Orlando and Fort Myers from Worcester, while phasing out their New York City service. The Fort Myers route is a seasonal offering that began in January and was planned to run through the end of last month.
“All three of the Florida markets came back very strong since COVID,” said Andy Davis, director of the Worcester Regional Airport. “People were pent up to travel again and business traffic wasn’t rebounding as well as leisure. Since they put the larger airplanes on, for example Fort Lauderdale, they’ve been able to fly more than 20,000 more passengers on just the Fort Lauderdale route because they have those additional seats.”
Davis added: “Similarly, with Orlando flying large airplanes, they were able to fly almost 22,000 more passengers because they had the seats. So, in total, between just Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, we were able to fly over 40,000 more passengers in that time period since last July. So that’s the biggest contributor to the increase of passenger activity.”
Accommodating the surge in passengers has been a top priority for Davis. “We want to keep the airport a convenient, easy, non-stressful environment,” he said. “With an increase in passengers, you’ve got that funnel effect, so we wanted to avoid growing lines at the TSA queuing area. We added a temporary second lane to accommodate the increased activity with passengers so instead of one lane we now have two lanes which serves to keep the lines short.”
With the increase in passengers comes a greater demand for seating, which has led to temporary limitations in the departure lounge. Davis says the airport is embarking on a project to move the security checkpoint to a larger, more open area within the terminal.
Likewise, there was an estimated need for roughly 250 additional parking spaces to meet the increased demands, especially during winter and spring vacations. The estimation held true, Davis said, adding that they were able to use abandoned aircraft park areas and add 160 new spaces.
“So, we actually achieved 100 percent capacity and we’re able to accommodate all the passengers and vehicles that were flying,” Davis said. “We didn’t have to resort to any kind of remote parking.”
Fort Myers was a new market for Jet Blue, explained Davis, who added that he deems the move “highly successful.”
“They started up in January and they immediately started with very high load factors,” said Davis. “They were right on par with the on average with the other Florida markets in the mid 80 percent load factors, which is the percentage of seats that are occupied. And, you know, during the holiday period, those flights were over 90 percent full.”
The Fort Myers route resumes in November and operates through April 2025. After the first year, JetBlue can schedule Fort Myers flights from the start of the travel season in November. Davis hopes the route’s popularity will convince JetBlue to make it a year-round service.
“We’re going back to JetBlue and sharing that good news with them in hopes that they’re impressed and would expand that to beyond just seasonal service,” he said.
All airlines now use larger aircraft at Worcester than pre-pandemic, with JetBlue switching to 162-seat planes from 100-seaters, and American and Delta upgrading to 75 and 76-seat planes respectively. The new Florida routes and dropped New York service align with JetBlue’s post-pandemic schedule realignment to meet rising leisure demand amid sluggish business travel recovery.
As for airport infrastructure improvements, Davis mentioned, “We repaved half of the runway. We did it in phases. We weren’t able to do the entire runway in just one year. So we did one half the runway during the COVID suspension and we just did the other half last year.”
Matt Olszewski is a freelance content and news writer based in Boston, MA. In his free time, Matt enjoys running, hiking or skiing. Matt is currently finishing up the MPH degree program at Tufts University. He can be reached at mattoskier@gmail.com
