At OIA, new Garage C complex runs at easy pace
Orlando’s airport faces a record flood of holiday travelers in the coming days.
Christmas at Orlando International Airport — with its trio of engorged parking garages, long waits for baggage and threats of delays — may play out like the Grinch’s second coming. Arriving three hours before a flight is recommended.
There is, however, tranquility and glamour to be found at the nation’s 13th busiest airport. It’s at the newly opened Garage C and the South Airport Automated People Mover Complex.
Despite their labeling, think of those facilities as a pampering, frequent-flier club for the masses. But there’s a problem. They aren’t easily found.
“I didn’t even know this was here,” said Carli Jenkins this week, with relief and awe. Graduating from college and picking up her inbound par-
ents, she had felt a rising dread of being lost in the airport’s maze when she unexpectedly arrived at Garage C.
“Wow, this is so cool. It’s like Disney,” she said, walking into the Automated People Mover Complex, where floors of lustrous terrazzo reflect vaulted ceilings of skylights and beams staggered at heights of 40, 50 and 60 feet.
Automated People Mover and APM are on signs and pronounced by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer in recorded greetings.
“APM? Are you kidding me?” said Linda Meikle of Clermont, who could not immediately translate the acronym. She and her husband decided to nose around in the nearly halfbillion-dollar garage and complex after dropping off their daughter for a flight. “Call it a train.”
The complex really is a train station. One day, it may host Brightline express trains from Miami, SunRail commuter trains from Central Florida and some sort of train from the tourism district.
Also, in 2020, the airport’s $2.1 billion South Terminal will open adjacent to the complex, offering 16 gates, anchored potentially by JetBlue and envisioned for 120 gates.
For now, the APM complex houses only automated shuttle trains that ferry passengers more than a mile between Garage C and the airport’s main terminal.
Finding it requires paying close attention.
For those arriving by car, there are no signs for the complex.
Signage for Garage C is inconsistent — including a temporary electric billboard here and a flashing display there — and hard to see among the bold, permanent signs for A and B. Clarity is coming, airport officials have promised. It could help. “I thought this was the main parking for the airport,” said Daniel Tomczak, a corporate-safety director from Tampa, who like many travelers at Garage C last week got there accidentally and worried initially they had made a big mistake.
Advice: Look high and low for a blue “C” and, once spotted, lock on to it.
Once at the garage, the APM complex is something to behold.
For much of a recent day, and every four minutes, shuttles with faces like Darth Vader’s arrived, inserting themselves into futuristic, glass-paned tubes accented with colorful lighting.
For long stretches, nobody got off and nobody got on, as a digital voice warned no one “the APM is now arriving.”
Up one level in the majestic “boulevard,” Meikle and her husband, Al, continued their tour, passing rows of empty, cushy chairs, tables and lots of electric receptacles.
The boulevard is 520 feet long. At the east end is possibly the loneliest Christmas tree in Orlando.
“It’s quite impressive,” Al Meikle said of the architecture.
“The light is gorgeous,” his wife added.
Sunlight filters through acres of glass, much of it coated with ceramic fritting — minuscule dots that diminish glare. Views are of forest, sky and jets on the go.
Most of what isn’t glass is creamy beige, a color workers know only as “GOAA white,” from the agency that runs the airport, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.
When Garage C and the complex opened in time for Thanksgiving, GOAA suggested it would be easier and quicker to park there.
It takes seven to nine minutes to park in Garage C, find an elevator, walk into the complex, catch the 3½-minute shuttle ride that hits 42 mph and arrive at security for gates 70 through 129 — Southwest, Delta and a slew of international carriers — near the Hyatt Regency.
Walking on to gates 1 through 59 — United, JetBlue, American and others — takes another few minutes.
Getting to security from garages A and B takes a few minutes less than getting there from C.
But none of those times account for checking baggage.
Checking baggage at the main terminal can be a zoo on normal days. At Garage C, there is just one bagcheck counter for six airlines: United; Southwest; JetBlue; Delta; American; and Alaska.
The worst-kept secret for the airport’s most convenient parking is the Terminal Top garage. It’s accessible to the terminal via an elevator. But come Christmas, snagging a spot there could be akin to a lottery win.
Garage C could be a good alternative, but Thanksgiving travelers did find it and filled all but a few hundred spaces. It’s also cheaper. Garage C costs $15 a day, less than the $17 a day for garages A, B and Terminal Top. It’s a bargain at any of the garages.
TravelBank, an app and website for expense tracking by business travelers, found Orlando garages to be the least costly this year among the nation’s 30 largest airports.
Business traveler Gary Weaver of Tampa, who doesn’t fly from Orlando often, recently wound up at Garage C unwittingly.
He made his way to the terminal to catch a flight. Returning to Orlando, he found himself befuddled inside the main terminal by not finding the Garage C shuttle.
“There are just no signs that say where,” Weaver said, maintaining humor about it. “I kind of wandered.”