J M Wetherington Sr

A week from tomorrow I fly from San Juan to Orlando, a flight I’ve taken many times in the past almost-two-years that I’ve been working here on The Enchanted Island.

Regardless of whether I’ve taken the 5am flight out or the later 6:20am flight out, one thing has remained consistent; the plane is always full. And I mean completely full or one empty seat.

That’s it.

There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. There is, and has been for 30+ years, a large Puerto Rican population in Orlando. Friends and family members travel back and forth to visit all the time.
2. Disney World, Universal Studios and, to a lesser extent, Sea World. Families come to Orlando all the time to visit the theme parks. They are what keep the Central Florida economy moving, as we found out when 9/11 happened and tourism in the area dried up to almost nothing.

So I’m curious to see what effect COVID-19 will have on my usual flight home next Friday.

We’re hearing anecdotal stories from other flyers in the U.S. that their flights, when available, are not flying with the usual number of passengers. I’m wondering; will the plane be full as usual or only partially full? Will it even be half full?  Will families decide not to take their children to theme parks in an effort to reduce exposure to the virus? Will grandparents opt of visiting their families because they (the grandparents) are more susceptible to the virus?

Or will everything be more or less…normal?

It’s something I won’t probably know until next Friday morning when I arrive at the airport, unless something else happens in the next 7 days, which is entirely in the realm of probability. This thing is blossoming all over the world and the U.S. so quickly that we really don’t know what the next week will bring.

But we’ll find out in a little over a week. See you then.