Duck Fans to the Rose Bowl!
Rose Bowl fever hit the Willamette Valley in December as the 7th ranked University of Oregon Ducks made the voyage from Eugene to Pasadena to play the 8th ranked Ohio Buckeyes. Even though the Ducks were not victorious in the game, the Eugene Airport celebrated a major victory.
December 30th was not a usual day at the Eugene Airport. On a normal holiday travel day about 1,100 passengers depart from EUG. On December 30th the airport had that number of people stepping onto an airplane in the first three hours of the day. By 1 PM we had processed over 1,700 departing passengers and by day’s end the 2,000 mark was passed. This more than doubled our average number of passengers, about 980, per day.
Why the major traffic flying out of EUG? We had six Rose Bowl charters carrying Duck alumni and supporters to LA for the big game. Starting with a 280-passenger Boeing 767 that departed at 7 AM (which is during our busy morning push) and followed by four Boeing 737 charters and an MD-80 charter.
Even with double our normal daily passenger count everything went very smoothly. Thanks to numerous planning meetings held between the airport staff and tenants, a plan was developed to accommodate the additional traffic. The TSA developed “Operation Duck” which allowed them to accommodate twice the amount of passengers and maintain a screening line that resulted in wait times not over ten minutes. Airport staff and Eugene Police monitored the curb-front to prevent gridlock. Our food and retail concessions ramped up to handle the additional onslaught of business and accommodated the crowds with minimal wait times.
Thanks to the hard work and planning on everyone’s part the day was a success. All of our normal passenger traffic was able to depart on their way to their holiday destinations and almost a thousand Duck fans were able to head to sunny LA to see the granddaddy of all college football games.
Now we are relaxing and taking some good notes so we can prepare for the next time the Ducks or OSU Beavers go to the Rose Bowl.
