ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the country and is the busiest in Florida.

What You Need To Know

  • OIA is the busiest airport in the state of Florida

  • The new Terminal C at OIA is nearly 90% complete

  • The new terminal will have several innovative features such as 100% facial recognition and 100% automated screening lanes

The highly anticipated new Terminal C is nearly 90% complete and will soon provide an additional 15 gates.

When the new Terminal C opens up, it is expected to add the total number of passengers that come through this airport by about 12 million.

Aside from tennis balls flying over nets, it's airplanes flying over Simon Gale’s head throughout the day at the USTA campus in Lake Nona.

The director of racquet sports for the USTA works just a few miles from MCO and says more passengers means more players.

“The campus was built for people to come and visit," Gale explains, watching a beginner's class learn the game. "We are a destination experience which fits right in, in Orlando.

Nearly a quarter million people a year visit the USTA campus. Next year, they are projecting even more.

“Our business model was about 60% community based and about 40% travel," Gale says. "Obviously, we lost a lot that during COVID and had to connect with the community to make up the difference.”

Orange County is also looking forward to potentially cashing in from more tourists flying in.

“Some of them are going to want to spend the night here," Orange County Phil Diamond points out. "If they spend the night here, they are going to be getting a motel room or a hotel room, or an overnight rental. If they do that, they will be paying TDT (Tourist Development Tax) and that will go right back in to the community”.

Several innovative features will be in the new terminal like 100% facial recognition, 100% automated screening lanes in TSA checkpoints, and the first fully integrated multi-model airport in the U.S. for rail-air-ground transportation with Brightline.

"Hopefully someday, SunRail comes to the airport," Diamond suggests. "That be really nice for people as well. It would be more convenient for Orange County residents.”

It is hard to project how many new travelers flying in to Orlando would visit the USTA for a game of tennis, but they have the courts and are ready to find out.

“I welcome the challenge of managing that," Gale states. "Maybe we would need to build more courts, which would be hard to believe.”

Completion of the new terminal is expected to be done in the first half of the year.​ Terminal C will also have two Central Florida businesses inside. Orange County Brewers, and the FoxTail Coffee Company.