TPA Closes Red Departures Drive for Repaving; Southwest, Frontier, Breeze Fliers Rerouted Through Mid-October

Tampa International Airport shut down the Red Departures drive to its Main Terminal ticketing level starting at 7 a.m. today, Aug. 31, kicking off a repaving project that will reroute drop-offs for Southwest, Frontier, Breeze Airways and several other carriers until mid-October.

Crews are stripping and replacing the traffic coating on all four lanes of the drive, the same work done on the Blue Departures drive last summer. The Hillsborough County Aviation Authority Board approved a $1.2 million contract with Restocon Corp. to handle the job.

Anyone dropping off a traveler flying a Red Side airline needs to pull into the Red Express Curbsides instead of the main Red Departures drive. From there, signs and airport staff will direct travelers through the Main Terminal to reach ticketing on the second floor.

Curbside bag check-in is still available at Red Express. Travelers who already have their boarding passes and aren't checking a bag can skip the ticketing counter entirely and take the Red Express escalators or elevators up to the third level, where the shuttle runs to their airside.

The detour affects a long list of carriers on the Red Side of the terminal: Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, Avelo Airlines, Breeze Airways, British Airways, Discover Airlines, Edelweiss Air, Frontier, Southwest Airlines, Sun Country Airlines and WestJet. Southwest alone accounts for a large share of TPA's daily departures, so the change touches a big slice of travelers passing through the airport over the next six weeks, right as fall travel picks up.

Travelers flying Blue Side airlines, including Delta, American, United and JetBlue, are not affected and can continue using their usual departures drive.

The airport is advising anyone unsure which side their airline uses to check its official airport site before heading to the curb, since guessing wrong means an extra walk through the terminal. Airport staff will be stationed at the Red Express Curbsides through the closure to help travelers find their way to ticketing or straight up to the shuttle level.

TPA has not said whether the repaving will affect pickup lanes or arrivals traffic on the Red Side, only that the work is limited to the departures drive. Drivers picking up arriving passengers should expect no change for now, though that could shift if the schedule runs long.

For more travel alerts and updates on what's happening around Tampa, visit Tampa Community Website and follow us on Facebook. Head into our Community Forum to swap notes with other travelers navigating the detour, and check our alerts page for more on what's changing around town this fall.

Header photo: Don Miller from Venice, United States / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)