There's a lot of construction going on at Burlington International Airport right now, plus a surge in traffic. Nicolas Longo, deputy director of aviation administration at BTV, joined Vermont Edition to talk about what's changing (taxiways are, runways aren't) and where the big bump in passenger volume is coming from.
Last summer the TSA screened almost 126,000 passengers and crew, and the airport anticipates a 16-percent increase over that number this year. Longo said that much of that increase is due to airlines bringing in larger airplanes on pre-existing routes.
"Our numbers really have been increasing over the last five, six months, but really over the last year. We've seen tremendous numbers," Longo told Vermont Edition. "And that's because the airlines are what we call 'upgauging.' They used to bring in smaller aircraft to all of our routes. And now they're bringing in what we call 'mainline.' These are larger aircraft — really double, sometimes triple in size of what we used to see."
Longo said the airport is prepared to handle the increased traffic.
Listen to the conversation with Longo above. Broadcast Thursday, July 5, 2018 at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
