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It's an easy drive to the Jacksonville International Airport these days and were it not for an ongoing road construction project at that exit off I-95, it would be easier still.
Parking is a cinch on the surface lots and in the garage. No circling is required to pounce on a space close to the terminal.
There are no baggage handlers outside the building -- a matter of safety, but there wouldn't be much work for them anyway.
COMPLETE COVERAGE | Coronavirus in Florida
Those long check-in lines at the airline counters? At 10:30 a.m. Thursday, three representatives of one major carrier stood quietly behind the counter chatting, with no passengers in sight.
The rows of rocking chairs in the large lobby leading to the concourses are empty. Gift shops and restaurants are shuttered. The choices for the few passengers waiting before they go through the TSA checkpoint are vending machines or Burger King.
"It's funny ... on our way in we stopped at Burger King, said Chris Montesinos of Jacksonville, who was seeing his girlfriend Madison Smith off for a flight to Detroit. "So that was a waste of time."
Speaking of TSA lines, there was only one lane open. No one was it in.
Smith, a nurse's aide who had spent the week in Jacksonville, looked around at the deserted area and laughed.
"At least I won't get stuck in the middle seat," she said.
Her smile disappeared as she watched a janitor, the only other person in the immediate area, walk past, the squeaky wheels on her cart echoing throughout the empty area.
"This is just creepy," she said.
Welcome to air travel in the coronavirus pandemic.
'A cold slap in the face'
With shelter-in-place orders in most states and a halt to almost all recreational travel, JIA is no different from every other large American airport. Business, even on a holiday weekend, is dismal.
The Transportation Security Administration, created after 9-11, reported on its Twitter feed that 97,130 people passed through airport security gates at U.S. airports on April 7. A year ago, on a day during the same week, it was more than 2.4 million.
Mark VanLoh, CEO of the Jacksonville Aviation Authority, said there were around 600 outbound passengers at JIA on Wednesday. A normal midweek day would see in excess of 10,000.
On March 20, the day that Mayor Lenny Curry closed Duval County beaches, there were 190 flights. Less than three weeks later, there were 110 and some planes carried as few as 15 passengers.
"It's been a cold slap in the face," VanLoh said.
The four airports that VanLoh supervises — JIA, Craig Field, Herlong Field and Cecil Field — have more than 300 employees. But there are thousands more who depend on an airport for their livelihood.
There are airline employees such as baggage handlers, ticket agents, mechanics, pilots and flight attendants. There are the workers at rental car agencies, restaurants, bars, coffee shops and gift shops.
The impact of a large airport also goes beyond its perimeter. Off-site parking lots, car services, taxis and airport shuttles, hotels and motels and restaurants are all affected.
The Florida Department of Transportation's most recent economic impact report on statewide aviation in 2017 showed the industry was responsible for $172 billion annually — $72 billion in what it called "airport activity," and $90 billion in visitor spending.
JAA is included within District 2 by FDOT, ranging from the First Coast west to Suwannee County and as far south as Williston, including Gainesville. The District 2 economic impact was estimated at more than $12 billion, with $7 billion credited to the JAA facilities.
The report also estimated that JIA impacts more than 26,000 jobs.
VanLoh has been trying to ease the economic sting on businesses that depend on a healthy JIA. He has deferred some rental costs to the airlines and released rental car agencies from monthly guarantees.
But the biggest food vendor for JIA has laid off nearly 300 employees. All of the baggage handlers have been furloughed, a combination of few passengers and the airlines wanting fewer hands on bags for safety reasons.
VanLoh hasn't had to lay off any staff yet, but some of his older employees are taking early retirement.
Summer outlook is gloomy
VanLoh said JIA gets around $8 million per month in landing fees and rents from the airlines. This month that figure is projected at perhaps $1 million. He's waiting to see what piece of the pie JAA and the airlines servicing JIA will get from the CARES Act, the $2 trillion economic stimulus plan that earmarked more than $70 billion in loans and payroll subsidies for the industry, and how it will help the airlines.
"No carriers have said they won't fly here," VanLoh said. "To take the money from the CARES Act, they still have to fly the routes and employ the people."
That might change. According to a Bloomberg News report, the Transportation Department is allowing airlines to cut routes by as much as 90 percent through September. For example, an airline that had 25 weekly flights to a city could cut that back to five.
Airlines will have to request permission to end service to a city but the airport has to be given notice and can appeal.
VanLoh said it's a foregone conclusion that the airlines won't recover much of their vacation business that usually begins on Memorial Day weekend and said the airline industry would be among the slowest sectors of the economy to rebound when the pandemic subsides.
If shelter in place orders are relaxed around the nation, many people still won't have the disposable income to travel and some could be leery of getting on a packed plane.
"We've given up on the summer season already," he said.
Businesses dependent on air travel suffer
The collapse of air travel has far-reaching effects.
When the few passengers who are traveling arrive at the airport, there are no bars or restaurants to wile away the time before a flight. Parking income is also cut drastically.
Although TSA agents have only a handful of passengers to screen at any given time, the agency has not furloughed or laid off employees, according to TSA spokesperson Sari Koshetz.
She said the TSA is only "adjusting schedules."
The decline in arriving passengers means fewer rental cars. Daniel Coffey, the manager on duty at a joint counter for Enterprise, National and Alamo, said those agencies are doing about 10 percent of the business than the same time last year.
"On a busy day, we'll rent around 1,000 cars," he said. "Now we're doing about 100 a day and we've been stuck on that number for a few weeks."
The Doubletree, the closest hotel to JIA, was at 20 percent occupancy on Thursday and Jeremy L. (he did not want his last name used), the day desk manager, said an Easter weekend in the past would have been between 92-95 percent.
The parking lots at every other hotel along the Airport Road have only a handful of cars. If they have restaurants, they're only offering take-out.
"It's as slow as I've ever seen it in the two years I've been here," he said. "This is what we'd be doing the week after Labor Day, with all the kids back in school."
Satellite parking lots are also hurting. Traven Chiaverini, the manager of Wally Park, said around 100 of his 1,300 spaces were occupied by travelers at mid-week.
Abraham (who didn't want his last name used), the manager at Park EZ Fly, estimated that 5 percent of his 600 spaces were in use.
One airport shuttle service, E Z Airport Shuttle, has parked its fleet of six vehicles, which had made 30 trips per day to JIA.
"We lost $7,000 of business per week," said E Z Airport Shuttle owner, former WJXT traffic reporter Terry "Taxi" Soles — who is now driving a car for zTrip.
VanLoh knows everyone is hurting. Short of the relaxation of rental car guarantees and deferring some rent, there's not much more he can do.
"We're trying anything to push some of the fees out," he said. "We hear them. They have not been hesitant to let us know that they're hurting. They tell us if we can help them, they appreciate it. We don't know how much it's helping and we still have to pay utilities and make payroll."
Not all doom and gloom
JAA isn't hurting everywhere. The Navy and Coast Guard are still staging the usual number of training flights at Cecil Airport and the 125th Fighter Wing of the Florida Air National Guard is still busy at JIA.
With the nation becoming more dependent on deliveries for goods, air cargo flights for FedEx and UPS are as busy as ever.
VanLoh said the low fuel prices have created an upsurge in private and recreational aviation at Craig Field and Herlong Field.
There were more than 16,000 "operations" last month at Craig Field, which VanLoh said was near a record.
"Cecil is booming," he said. "Herlong is kind of our hobbyist airport, and it's doing well."
z Trip has made up for the estimated 95 percent loss of business to the airport by using its fleet of 300 cars in other areas of transportation, such as driving people to medical appointments and food delivery.
"Regardless of the current ongoing circumstances, there are always people in need of transportation in one way or another," said sales manager Richard Johansen.
But there are few optimistic forecasts for discretionary air travel, regardless of how fast the country emerges from its pandemic cocoon.
"I have questions about whether air travel will ever be the same," Soles said. "Even if the economy comes back, I think a lot of business travel will be gone forever. Companies have been making do with meetings on Zoom and Skype and they might keep doing that."
VanLoh said seismic changes are in store.
"It's not the same industry going forward, and won't be for many years," he said.
Garry Smits: (904) 359-4362
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