A year ago the new terminal at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport performed almost brilliantly in its first big test after opening: Thanksgiving Holiday.
The gleaming structure with its soaring ceiling and cavernous main hall looking out on the field was everything the former terminal wasn’t.
Clean, smart, stylish, pleasing to the eye with plenty of room for the throngs of passengers who would be welcomed, not abused, in the minutes after landing in New Orleans.
A year on and the gleaming shine that is the new terminal hasn’t changed…much.
Now in the age of COVID, the terminal stands ready for the Thanksgiving holiday rush.
“Well, it’ll will be a very different Thanksgiving travel period,” says Airport Director Kevin Dolliole. “Traffic will be up, slightly, for the holiday period the Tuesday before until the Monday after Thanksgiving. Maybe departures up about ten percent over the previous weeks.”
That’s the good news. The bad news is flight numbers are still down 42% compared with the year before.
But MSY is ready for travelers regardless as many new features have been added to make your experience as clean and safe as can be.
“We’ve really stepped up cleanliness of the facility, we were doing so even before COVID came along,” Dolliole emphasizes. “There’s physical distancing markers throughout the facility. Capacity limits on elevators (only four allowed at one time), escalators, where there’s four running together, maybe two are shut down, to cause good physical separation. Plexiglas partitions at the airline ticket counters as well.”
Dolliole says his people have gone all out to make sure the airport is as clean and sanitized as can be. And, it’s earned the airport special recognition.
The Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC) has recognized MSY for their efforts.
“We’re one of six U.S. airports that has received that certification,” Dolliole says proudly. “It’s sort of third-party validation that you’re taking the necessary steps to ensure, not just cleaning your facility, but that it’s well sanitized and safe.”
The GBAC STAR accreditation program helps facilities prepare for, respond to, and recover from biological threats and biohazard situations.
Dolliole also wants to assure passengers everyone, from airline employees to third party vendors, services, and operations are doing their level best as well to ensure safety, sanitization, and cleanliness is going on back-of-the-house as it is in the public areas of the terminal.
“I can tell you all the tenants on the airport have their processes in place to ensure the safety of their employees and the traveling public as they handle their goods moving through the facility as well.”
