Key West airport opens new baggage claim area, easing arrivals

Travelers landing at Key West International Airport stepped into a new baggage claim area on April 14, with one of two planned carousels now handling arrivals in the space that once squeezed bags into the old ground-floor departure area. The first passengers to use it came in on Delta from Atlanta and American from Miami, an early sign that the airport’s newest addition is already part of the daily flow into the island.

The new setup centralizes baggage handling and adds nearby airline support spaces, replacing a layout that had become crowded as passenger counts climbed. Airport spokeswoman Katie Atkins said the carousel was built to handle “record-breaking growth” and future capacity, while airport director Richard Strickland called the opening another major step in the Concourse A and terminal-improvements program. For an airport that has spent years moving from a more makeshift arrivals setup to a modern terminal, the baggage claim opening is a practical shift, not just a cosmetic one.

The change matters because Key West International Airport is one of the Florida Keys’ main economic gateways. Monroe County says the airport is a self-supporting enterprise fund and a vital part of the county’s economic foundation. County reports showed 81.6K TSA screenings in December, up 3% from a year earlier, and 872K passengers for all of 2025, up 4.5% year over year. The county’s long-range planning puts average annual growth at 2.4%, with traffic projected to reach 1.1 million to 1.2 million passengers a year by 2035, close to capacity.

The baggage-claim opening also fits into a larger buildout that has already changed the look and scale of the airport. Concourse A opened in May 2025 after construction that began in late 2022. The 48,802-square-foot facility includes eight glass jet bridges, new concessions, expanded TSA lines, state-of-the-art baggage carousels and airline offices. Monroe County’s FY2026 budget book describes the work as a 50,000-square-foot Concourse A and terminal-improvements program, and the second phase still underway includes a new pedestrian bridge, a new and expanded baggage claim and arrivals area, a multiple-lane security checkpoint and support services expected by summer 2026.

That larger investment has direct consequences for how visitors move through Key West the moment they land. Rental-car counters sit in the arrivals and bag-claim area, taxis queue just outside baggage claim, and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office staffs airport security and police services around the clock. Envoy Air said it handled almost 48,000 bags in the fourth quarter of 2025 with a 99.64% baggage success rate, underscoring how closely airline operations, passenger flow and the airport’s new infrastructure now depend on one another. Monroe County Mayor Jim Scholl called the Concourse A transformation “an amazing upgrade” and said it makes the airport “a world class destination hub.”