SFB or MCO? - Orlando / Florida Guide
Florida Guide > Miscellaneous
Sanford Airport is M. C. O. s younger, plainer sister but is well known to all those Brits that take charter flights.
The main carrier using this airport are Allegiant Air and they are a budget airline that travel from 30 other domestic cities.
Sanford is a small historic city and it is said that every single year 22 times its population of Brits passes through its airport.
The user code for Sanford Airport is S. F. B. and to track its history we have to go right back to the first half of the twentieth century.
In those days it was a small 2 runway airport but during the war the City handed it over to the U. S. Navy. They bought 615 acres land to use for extending the airport. Those of you who have used this airport will not be a bit surprised to learn that many of these original facilities are still in use today.
The City regained control of this airport in 1969 and after some wrangling over deed issues it has slowly become the busy commercial airport that we know today.
In 1996 a renovation project was completed that cost a surprisingly modest 35 million dollars.
7 years later more dollars were pumped in to mainly use on runways.
The gigantic lake you see when you fly into S. F. B. is Lake Monroe which was home to the Native Americans known as the Timucans and the Seminole.
So which airport should you choose? Well, to a large extent your mind will be made up for you. If you fly B. A. or Virgin you will fly into M. C. O. the same thing goes if you fly indirect with an American carrier (North West or Delta, for instance)
If you fly Thomson, First Choice, Cosmos or Thomas Cook then you will land in S. F. B.
M. C. O. is likely to be nearer to your vacation villa that S. F. B. but in my experience you tend to get out of Sanford Airport faster.
For sure S. F. B. is short on facilities; no big retail opportunities or lkarge choice of cafes. Since you will almost certainly have paid less for your flight you may want to pay to use the lounge.
The lounge costs around $30 pp and you get 2 alcoholic drinks, a variety of snacks, a reading room, games room and T. V. room.
The immigration used to be considerably more affable than their M. C. O. counterparts but in recent years the Orlndo airport officials have put the officers through a customer care course whic has improved things no end.
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