It was a new record for the airport, the most passengers ever screened by TSA officers in a single day, and it explains why this Monday is known as Exodus Monday, the Monday right after the Super Bowl.

Included in those 100,000 passengers were staff from airports in New Orleans, the host city for the 2025 Super Bowl.

They were there to enjoy the game, but more importantly to observe and learn from the enormous logistical challenges faced by the city's airports.

Planning for their own challenge started more than a year out, and this is an account of how the Super Bowl almost breaks airports and how the airports stay unbroken.

The biggest challenge for Super Bowl airports isn't the number of passengers, it's the number of planes.

Nearly 30% of flights that landed in Las Vegas on the Thursday before the game in 2024 were private jets, while a record 984 landed in Miami for Super Bowl 54.

And while you probably haven't considered this before, it's not the take-off and landing that causes the logistical problem, it's the parking.

You see, the number of available parking spaces for planes is regularly outstripped by the actual number of planes, and here's how that's managed.

The Federal Aviation Administration, or the FAA, work with the NFL to create a special event reservation prior permission required, or PPR system, that all business aircraft must use.

This gives a certain number of slots to each airport's fixed base operator, or FBO, companies given the permission to operate and provide aeronautical services at airports.

FBOs can then schedule customers into these slots, and the amount and length of those are decided by FAA.

So for Super Bowl 59, slots are available in five airports in the New Orleans metropolitan area.

The FAA expect about 600 aircraft will be parked at local airports during Super Bowl week, and some of these spots will be long-term or overnight, but when those run out, the only option for many will be drop and go reservations.

This is when a private jet will drop its passengers off at an airport before taking off again to park at a different airport, and then returning only when they're scheduled to leave again from the first airport.

So if you're lucky enough to be how easy is it to secure one of these spots?

Well, the PPR system is strictly first-come, first-served, but for billionaires who book late, there are workarounds.

Obviously, they could park at airports further away where the reservation system isn't in place, but there's a risk that spaces could run out there too.

Alternatively, private jet providers will proactively obtain slots before they've actually been requested by customers, meaning that in theory they could hold slots back for the right customer.

But as you might expect, chartering a private jet is not cheap.

For an event like the Super Bowl, the cost typically falls between $2,000 and $15,000 per hour, while FBOs will also charge landing fees, which can range between $750 and $3,000.

So that's challenge number one.

Challenge number two for airports is dealing with commercial flights.

Unsurprisingly, these ramp up massively for an event like the Super Bowl.

As an example, on a typical weekend, United Airlines will fly 40 flights a day to Las Vegas using Boeing's 737 planes that have a capacity of about 172 passengers.

On Super Bowl weekend in 2024, they flew in 75 flights a day to the city using Boeing's 777s, with a significantly larger capacity.

For Super Bowl 59 week in New Orleans, the FAA expects nearly 7,000 takeoffs and landings.

And consequently, air traffic control at some airports will operate for longer hours, easing traffic by rerouting planes, and imposing altitude restrictions or ground delay programs.

And next, there's the challenge of moving the huge number of passengers through the airport without causing extra delays.

Now, airports capable of hosting an event like the Super Bowl are generally designed to cope with this kind of strain.

Upon construction, architects will work with specialist consultants to create a peak capacity figure based on factors like the number of runways, space to park planes, the number of terminals, local airspace, and other things.

With this in mind, facilities like corridors, gates, check-in facilities, and lounges are designed accordingly.

And while everyone hates queuing at an airport, when, where, and how you queue is usually part of a deliberate design to create the most efficient overall flow of traffic.

For Super Bowl week, Transportation Security Administration workers, otherwise known as the TSA, are brought in from other states to ensure that security checks can remain open for longer.

In 2024, 77 staff came to Las Vegas from 33 different airports across the country to help with this.

You see, Super Bowl airport planning starts a year out for a reason.

And it's this detail that makes the airport's playbook so effective.

What may seem on the surface like mundane bureaucracy is actually the remarkable and essential collaboration of thousands of workers.

New Orleans expects up to 150,000 visitors to its city this Super Bowl weekend, and the airports are merely one example of an industry among many going to extreme logistical lengths, all for the sake of a game of football. in the world, offering exclusive stories and unrivaled insight.

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