ORLANDO, Fla. — The new CEO of Orlando International Airport is gearing up to oversee decades of projects and spend hundreds of millions of dollars, all in the name of improving the passenger experience.
Lance Lyttle made his debut in front of the news cameras Friday as he showed off the smallest of the improvements coming to the airport: a moving walkway, the first to come to Terminal C after passengers complained about walking long distances when the gleaming building initially opened.
In a few weeks, more will come online when the airport opens its pedestrian bridge between the new terminal and the train station. The bridge will also become the new home of the Terminal C rental car kiosks, but that project is still in progress.
However, Lyttle has bigger plans ahead.
“I think the security checkpoint wait times and the lines are too long, especially during the peak hours,” he observed.
To that effect, Lyttle will be overseeing some of the biggest renovations in airport history that will touch every aspect passengers encounter.
Terminal C now has the funding to add eight more gates, completing the pared-down structure for now.
The older terminals are all on track to be modernized, which Lyttle said would focus on the bathrooms, TSA checkpoints, flooring and ceilings. He did not say if he plans to keep the airport’s famous green carpet in any capacity.
Lyttle said he would be adding parking, which could come when the airport creates a centralized rental car facility that is expected to free up spaces in the bottom floor of the main garage.
First, he said he would tackle modernizing the airport’s baggage infrastructure, a project he oversaw in Seattle.
The airport currently has six different systems in its three terminals. Lyttle wants to cut that down to one.
“You can check your bag that any ticket counter and your bag gets to any aircraft anywhere in the airport,” he said.
He said it took 10 years and a lot of cash to make that a reality on the west coast. The bathroom expansions, he said, would cost $72 million alone.
Further out, he previewed a plan to put a people mover around Terminal C that would also stop at the train station and the rental car facility.
He also said he was looking ahead to a two-phase plan to create space for air taxis, futuristic planes that take off and land vertically.
Florida is aiming to launch that technology in Orlando once it becomes commercially viable.
“One of the things that attracted me to the airport is that we actually have the real estate to do it,” he said. “Not many airports have that… Initially we’ll do like digital takeoff and takeoff and landing and development on the on the east side, and then we’ll look at in phase two of actually having it on the airport itself.”
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