MIAMI MAY 5 2020,— This past weekend we took on the task of visiting Miami International Airport, we wanted to have a closer look at how things were over there, we toured much of the terminals and believe me that I felt sorry and painful in seeing a desolate place, as if the world had stopped and all the living beings had disappeared , and I asked myself several questions, When will this airport be what it was again what it was a few months ago?, and also when I saw all the shops closed I asked myself, what time will it take these businesss to return to normal?, or will they come back?.
Miami Dade County, or in this case, the Aviation Department, which runs MIA’s operations, has in their hands an arduous task to repair the damage that the Pandemic has done by the emergence of COVID-19, a rare bug arrived or shipped from China that has the entire world uneasiness.
During my visit to the airport I walked in various directions in the terminals and sometimes I was alone, I could count on my fingers the people I found in all areas.
I saw with my own eyes as the operators of the different food and beverage concessions, retail stores and different services are suffering from the low volume of passengers in MIA. A large percentage of the shops, restaurants and service providers have closed their doors, very little of them have drastically reduced hours of operation and staff due to the decrease of passengers at the airport by 95%, according to official data, for me it was surprising to see what until two months ago was one of the most important international airports in the nation serving a small number of domestic travelers.
According to some of the dealerships who were able to talk about it because of being open, “we had to give “lay-off” to most of the staff due to extremely low sales,” we were told. In some establishments, employees who attend in stores and provide services are members of the management staff.
“Sales are at an all-time low and we can barely cover payroll costs,” another dealer told us to advance that, “all concessions are the same.
The dealers explained that they were forced to lay off the staff because they could not cover the payroll expense, “that among the many other expenses that come with operating at the airport,” they tell us. They hoped that government programs like the Payroll Protection Plan (PPP) would save their employees, however they told us that funding came too late for an industry that has been so affected that PPP made no sense.
They explained that PPP only works as a grant if employers could rehire the same number of employees they had before the pandemic began, but with the airport falling to 95%, “all dealers know that would be impossible,” the entrepreneur concluded.
Another question is how long will it take these businesses to get enough sales back into it once MIA re-opened, will they be able to sustain themselves, pay for a nomination and their airport agreements?, the county and Aviation Department will have to help these small businesses get back to normal.
But however the concessions are not the only ones suffering in MIA, the airport itself had to receive federal funds in order to continue operating. Airports generally operate with airline revenue and concessions, aeronautical and non-aeronautical revenues, with most airlines stranded on the ground and airport concessions closed, the airport had to receive the sum of $207 million in federal funds in order to continue operating while it weathered.
The serious problem with the airport and concessions is that it is still too early to know when passenger traffic will be recovered or when the situation will begin to normalize.
Reports are not encouraging, airport industry organizations expect it to be years before passenger traffic returns to pre-COVID-19 numbers.
