MELBOURNE, Fla. \u2014 Melbourne Orlando International Airport is flying high, seeing record growth over the past decade.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Widening of the taxiway, new asphalt, and a new lighting system are part of the airport’s plan<\/p>\n
The airport has been working to keep up with growth over the past decade, with more than $100 million spent on capital investments
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The expansion stands to benefit businesses around the airport<\/p>\n
And there are plans for even more expansion. It is benefiting businesses around the airport.<\/p>\n
Alexandra Lawson has been with The Flop Shop in downtown Melbourne for three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sell flip-flops, hats, shoes, sunglasses,\u201d Lawson said<\/p>\n
Items ideal for Florida weather, and a place tourists can come to stock up on things that they\u2019ll need for their Sunshine State trip.<\/p>\n
Recently, Lawson helped a lady visiting from France.<\/p>\n
\u201cI helped her find some shoes. She was with her mom, traveling,” she said. “We have a lot of people coming in from New York.”<\/p>\n
Many of them are flying into Melbourne Orlando International Airport, which is minutes away from downtown.<\/p>\n
The airport has been working to keep up with growth over the past decade, with more than $100 million spent on capital investments.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur three runways, our air traffic control tower, our terminal building, we\u2019re really trying to keep pace with our tenant activity out here,\u201d said Cliff Graham, the airport’s director of operations.<\/p>\n
Twenty thousand people work in and around the airport. That includes thousands of aerospace workers in the high-tech corridor.<\/p>\n
A big project happening now is geared toward the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a multi-year project where we are widening the taxiway, new asphalt, new lighting system, to accommodate larger widebody aircraft,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Graham says they are working to finish this part of the runway before international tourism company TUI resumes its flights from Europe at the end of the month.<\/p>\n
He says it\u2019s convenient for those tourists to get to the parks, the beaches or watch rocket launches but to also spend money locally at shops and restaurants.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to welcome those visitors into our community,\u201d says Graham.<\/p>\n
Lawson welcomes them to shop at The Flop Shop.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love meeting them, talking to them, learning about where they came from and have great conversations,\u201d she said with a smile.<\/p>\n
The airport generates $3.2 billion in economic impact each year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Fla. \u2014 Melbourne Orlando International Airport is flying high, seeing record growth over the past decade. What…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[274,2175,315,9143,115,139,141,140,278,2177],"class_list":{"0":"post-178751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-app-traffic-and-transit","10":"tag-brevard-county","11":"tag-greg-pallone","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-orlando-headlines","15":"tag-orlando-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-traffic-and-transit"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}