Key West International Airport is one among two airports within the Keys however the one one with business flights.
Monroe County
Paradise is caught.
Flights out and in of Key West got here to an abrupt halt Monday afternoon when the island’s airport shut down its solely runway as a result of a small part of asphalt going comfortable.
Key West International Airport and Monroe County officers stated “asphalt failure” is responsible — however the injury was not prompted straight by a aircraft, stated county spokeswoman Kristen Livengood.
The runway will open at 6 a.m Tuesday, stated Richard Strickland, the county’s director of airports.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Strickland instructed a reporter with FLKeysNews.com/Miami Herald.
“I don’t know exactly what caused it,” he stated. “There was asphalt that came up and apart. We immediately shut everything down and called for repair crews.”
By 4:45 p.m. Monday, Strickland stated one crew was on its approach from Islamorada to Key West, a few two-hour drive. Another firm in Key West was additionally referred to as in.
Passengers have to verify with the airways for brand new flight occasions, in keeping with the airport’s Facebook web page.
Key West International, as soon as a breeze to zip by way of, is now a crowded and typically cramped place to await boarding. The common wait time for each departures and getting by way of the TSA checkpoint was 45 minutes in 2021. Last yr, Strickland referred to as the departure space situations “horrible.”
The airport set records in 2021, with almost 1.5 million folks passing by way of the airport off South Roosevelt Boulevard. That’s a 53 % improve over the earlier document in 2019, according to a report by WLRN in May.
In 2019, the Key West airport had 969,069 passengers come by way of. In 2020, the primary yr of the coronavirus pandemic, the depend was 641,876.
The solely option to board or depart a aircraft in Key West is by crossing the tarmac. But the county has been planning an $80 million enlargement that can change that by including glass jetways that join from the airport to the aircraft.
%20Cropped%20(1).jpg "Traveling to and from Key West by aircraft? Lone runway had ‘asphalt failure,’ wants restore 1")
Gwen Filosa covers Key West and the Lower Florida Keys for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald and lives in Key West. She was a part of the workers on the New Orleans Times-Picayune that in 2005 gained two Pulitzer Prizes for protection of Hurricane Katrina. She graduated from Indiana University.
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