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Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in Greer had a dramatic jump in traffic heading to Phoenix for the Clemson versus Alabama national championship football game.
Unbeaten Clemson (14-0) plays Alabama (13-1) at 8:30 tonight in Glendale, Ariz., for the college football championship.
Fifteen charters and 2,548 additional passengers were serviced through GSP, including the team, band and fans. Delta in included an extra flight among the 15 and three charters left as late as this morning.
“GSP required a lot of coordination and we were able to make adjustments in operations, customer relations and letting travelers know we were expecting a busier than usual weekend,” said Rosylin Weston, spokesperson at the GSP.
Weston said airport staff were concerned that regular travelers were not effected. “We didn’t want to ignore and impact them, too,” Weston said.
At today’s GSP commissioner’s meeting, Chairperson Minor Shaw asked GSP executives how the staff responded.
“The last thing we wanted was somebody buying a thousand dollar package to Arizona and miss their flights,” said Dave Edwards, President and CEO of GSP.
“We knew we would be extra busy at check-in, TSA screening and with concessions and vendors,” Weston said. “Our facilities (staff), baggage, police and our front-line customer service helped things run as smoothly as possible.”
GSP is near-completion of a $120 million terminal improvement program that has work being continuing at the new ticket counters and the main lobby. The project is due to be finished in the third quarter.
“The airport probably looked a little different for some people who haven’t traveled through GSP for a few years so we wanted to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible.”
The only noted problem, according to Edwards, was Delta overbooking a flight to Phoenix by nine passengers.