GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport is seeing a serious drop in passenger traffic as states are quarantining and locking down due to COVID-19.
“It’s dropped off a lot,” says Airport Director Marty Piette, “Passenger traffic is down about 95% over what it was the same time last year.”
That small percentage of people still making their way through the gates tend to be essential workers being sent to places that may need extra help.
“On average, we have less than fifty people coming through the terminal building each day,” Piette tells WTAQ News, “We’re seeing a handful of passengers coming through the terminal building. Typically it’s essential workers – doctors, nurses, volunteers, maybe service techs that are going to repair equipment at facilities.”
But a significant dropoff in traffic flowing through the terminal itself doesn’t mean the airport is running on a skeleton crew.
“We still have an airport to run. We still see cargo flights, military activity, general aviation and corporate flights, ambulatory flights. We still have to maintain our facility. So we’re still, from an operational standpoint, 100% open and staffed,” Piette says, “We did increase our cleaning even more. Patrols to clean high-touch areas like countertops and doorknobs. The TSA has stepped up their efforts including checkpoint areas and airlines have done the same with their counters and aircraft.”
They even hired a contractor who used a fog-style cleaning spray to sterlize terminals one night earlier this week.
“The reality is that there really aren’t that many people in the terminal building, so the likelihood of any community transmission at our facility is pretty low. But we want to make sure we stay on top of our cleaning efforts,” Piette says.
As for passengers who aren’t essential workers or those heading to take care of family – Piette says at least in Green Bay, they’re far and few between.
“Some of them, once you arrive from out of state, you’re in immediate quarantine for 14 days. So the idea here is that airlines are adjusting capacity based on demand,” Piette says, “There are so few people flying that the airlines canceled most of their flights and reduced their frequency. Once you get somewhere, what are you going to do? There’s nothing that you can do from the vacation standpoint.”
Though airlines are cutting back on flights and frequency right now, Piette is optimistic for the future. Once the pandemic calms down and people are able to confidently board flights again, the airline economy will likely take back off with it.
“There is pent up demand to get back on the road. Video conferencing and teleconferencing is great, but it can’t replace that in-person interaction,” Piette says, “I think the airlines are probably going to come out of this in the end a little bit smaller than they were, but one things that we’ve seen in the US anytime we have a crisis – 9/11, the financial crisis, and now this – the airlines tend to come back stronger than ever.”
