Myrtle Beach Airport Details Expansion Plans to Make Travel Easier for Visitors, Locals

Oct. 18—MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Weekend visitors to Myrtle Beach International Airport this summer often were confronted with lines everywhere — lines at security, lines for food, lines for rental cars, lines stretching the length of the building, lots of lines.

Now, the airport has revealed some of its plans to make travel easier for the thousands of passengers who walk through its doors each year.

Some of the airport's plans are years away, but some of them will result in changes passengers will see as soon as next summer.

Here's what's going on, according to airport spokesman Ryan Betcher.

Rental cars

— $20 million improvement to the rental car lot to add covered canopies for all of the cars, as well as outdoor booths for car pickup.

— Passengers will no longer have to wait in long lines in the rental car building, and the outdoor booths could be used to speed up rental pickup for customers with status with their rental car agency.

— The canopies will be added in two waves, but the booths can be expected as soon as next year. The first wave of construction starts later this fall and will be completed by spring, and the next wave will start in fall of 2022 and be finished by spring of 2023.

Terminal changes, expansion

— Right now, the airport has only one terminal, but plans are under consideration to add another five to six gates onto the end of the "A" gate area on the south side of the building.

— It is likely to be another year before specific plans for the terminal expansion, including the potential cost, are finalized, and two years after that before construction would be completed.

— For the first time, the airport will also keep its entire terminal open year-round. Previously, sections of the "B" gate area would be shut off as the number of flights declined, but the expanded number of off-season flight offerings, including from Southwest, means the entire building will be open all winter.

More fuel storage

— The airport is adding 100,000 gallons in fuel storage capacity.

— This will help accommodate both the increased number of flights coming to the airport now, as well as better prepare in the event of another fuel supply crunch, as seen during the Colonial Pipeline shutdown in May.

What's already happened

— More baggage handling capacity, to ensure passengers get their luggage quickly.

— Efficiency improvements to TSA screenings to speed up the process, most of which went into place earlier this summer after the height of the TSA wait time problems.

Not on the books, but being looked into

As it makes all of these other improvements, Betcher said the airport is looking at any potential bottlenecks that might be slowing down travel for passengers. Among these is TSA, which at its worst saw 70-plus minute wait times from the moment a passenger walked in the door. The current TSA checkpoint doesn't have much space to expand into, but one possibility adding another checkpoint, possibly when the terminal expansion is done in the next few years.

All of these changes will hopefully make travel a little easier next year and even better in the coming years as these projects are completed.

"I don't think any of us really anticipated it was going to be quite as busy as it was," Betcher said. "But we've learned a lot this summer, and going into next year, we're going to be prepared."

This story was originally published October 18, 2021 5:00 AM.

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