On any given day, about 13,000 travelers board planes at Pittsburgh International Airport.

On Tuesday, there were 400.

With air travel decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Pittsburgh International has become a literal ghost town.

Passenger traffic has slowed to a trickle. The number of flights has plummeted. Many shops and restaurants have closed. The parking lots are so empty planes could land there. Only the garage is open — at a discount rate to those who venture out.

For Christina Cassotis, Allegheny County Airport Authority CEO, it’s a “pretty eerie and unsettling time,” not only at Pittsburgh International but in the travel industry as whole. 

“We have watched our business fall off a cliff in a matter of weeks,” she said Wednesday during a Pittsburgh Technology Council webcast. “I just don’t even know how to talk about how empty and desolate it is. It’s an extended post 9/11 feel.”

And like 9/11, it could even physically change the airport’s operation. Among other things, the crisis has pushed back plans to start work on a modernization of the Pittsburgh airport and could even trigger changes in that design to accommodate the new habit of social distancing.

There’s no avoiding the reality that travel has stalled. The number of daily scheduled flights from the airport, typically 180, plunged to about 70 Wednesday counting cancellations. In parking lots and a garage that generally would accommodate about 10,000 cars on a weekday, Wednesday’s count totaled about 400.

On the retail side, the majority of airport concessionaires have closed temporarily. Only 13 of about 45 are open, nearly all of them restaurants.

Pittsburgh International is not the only airport facing such upheaval. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration reported that it screened 97,130 travelers Tuesday — down 95% from the 2.1 million processed on the same weekday a year ago.

It’s a crisis unlike any Ms. Cassotis or anyone else has seen, and one that has the potential to obliterate the airport’s budget, which relies solely on revenue from airlines, concessions and passengers.

“All of that stuff, it’s gone. Where is our revenue coming from?” she asked.

To curb costs, the airport has shut down all of its moving walkways. It has roped off part of one concourse in the airside building, and Ms. Cassotis hinted that it might consider consolidating airlines on others.

The authority, which operates Pittsburgh International, also has offered voluntary furlough and early retirement programs to employees, although it has not been forced to lay off anyone at this point.

At the same time, with so little business, “We’ve got lot of folks who are asking for relief and they just don’t want to pay us right now,” Ms. Cassotis said without being specific.

She added airport officials are reviewing contracts and force majeure provisions that could prevent parties from performing their obligations under contracts because of unforeseen circumstances.

Ms. Cassotis is thankful for the $10 billion in aid to airports included in the federal stimulus package, although the airport does not know how much it will get or when.

For now, uncertainty reigns. The crisis not only has left the airport all but deserted, it also could affect plans for a $1.1 billion modernization that includes a new terminal for security, ticketing and baggage claim.

Site work was supposed to begin this month. That will not happen. Ms. Cassotis said it’s anyone’s guess at this point when actual construction will start, given the precarious state of the airlines responsible for funding it.

“We have not broken ground yet. We’re unlikely to until the environment is ready for that. Our airline partners are losing billions of dollars in revenue. Without passengers, without activity, this industry grinds to a halt,” she said.

To fund the project, the airlines still must agree to new long-term leases. The authority was moving to finalize those negotiations when the pandemic hit.

“We are evaluating when it makes sense to move forward. We know it’s the right project. We just need to make sure it will be the right time,” she said. “Until we can sell bonds, it’s not going to be the right time.”

If there’s a bright side in all the anguish, the delay in the start of the modernization may give the airport and its architects time to design the terminal for what could be the new normal, post COVID-19 — just as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks ushered in TSA checkpoints.

“Now the question is going to be, well, what’s the structural change in this industry as a result of the pandemic and does that mean we have to work in social distancing opportunities?” Ms. Cassotis said.

“So for us, actually, this is a perfect time for us to think about what does that look like and how can we be leaders in helping define it for the industry.”

Besides social distancing, the future also may include areas to screen travelers for illness and fevers, she said,

“There’s going to be some sort of need for something along those lines is my guess and we’ll going to need to agree as an industry how to implement that,” she explained.

There’s also a chance that Pittsburgh, with its robust robotics industry, could help lead the way, Ms, Cassotis said — perhaps by creating robots to help disinfect the terminal.

Travel was one of the first big areas impacted by the coronavirus and Ms. Cassotis senses that it “will be one of the last industries to come back strong.”

But she also believes Pittsburgh — with its tech, energy, health care and finance sectors and its universities — could get flights back relatively quickly depending on the appetite for travel. The airport’s emphasis in recent years in generating more local traffic also could help, she said.

Having a hub may not be an advantage, she pointed out, noting that more travelers may opt for nonstops rather than connecting flights, post COVID-19. Pittsburgh used to get a lot of traffic related to serving as a hub.

“We’re not reliant on those connecting passengers. There are a lot of hubs today that are panicked,” she said.

For the moment, the airport is weathering the storm by doing the things that need to be done — cutting the grass to prevent birds from nesting, keeping the airfield clear of debris and foreign objects for those planes still taking off and landing, and making sure the 80 or so jets parked on runways, taxiways and aprons because of the lack of travel are secure.

As for Ms. Cassotis herself, she said she is handling the situation fairly well, looking for chances to learn from it.

“I’m probably drinking a little bit more wine than I used to but not so much that I’m not functioning,” she said, joking.

Mark Belko: [email protected] or 412-263-1262.

———

©2020 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at www.post-gazette.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.