Passengers affected by tram troubles at Orlando International Airport can file for refund

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orlando International Airport has set up a website where passengers who missed flights because of tram breakdowns can file a claim to be reimbursed. The most recent tram issue was late May because of a malfunction in the tram's connection to the powered rail system, airport officials said.

Airport executive director Phil Brown told Channel 9's Field Sutton that he also plans to seek additional reimbursement for recent outages from the tram builder, Mitsubishi, after having received concessions based on problems the system experience beginning in April.

Frequent flyer Mike Daugherty told Eyewitness News that he got delayed by the broken down trams twice.

"That trip back on the 19th was a mess. Kind of chaotic,” Daugherty said. "I was a little surprised that this was still going on."

After two and a half hours busing passengers to their planes on May 31, crews at OIA pressed a new tram into service early to get people moving. It was originally scheduled to begin hauling passengers next Monday. Only later did airport officials learn the broken tram, just recently placed in service itself, had a flaw in the system that connects it to the powered rail.

"It took about six hours for Mitsubishi and their engineers to locate that problem, correct it and put it back into operation,” Brown said.

Brown said OIA has collected $400,000 from Mitsubishi for the problems occuring through mid-May. The contract gives the airport $100,000 a tram goes down for at least 15 minutes, which Brown said had happened at least twice since those financial concessions were put in place, and leaving the airport to return to Mitsubishi seeking additional compensation.

In the meantime, the airport authority hopes to begin paying the first of 79 claims for missed flights and hotel rooms next week.

Brown said travelers should have a smoother experience going forward because both trams serving Airside 3 would remain operational and create a redundancy that had been missing during construction.

"We've learned a lot of lessons, implemented it. We had large buses in place,” Brown said.

Cox Media Group