Super Bowl 54 set a record for people leaving Miami. How MIA handled the crush.

The end of Super Bowl 54 had Miami’s airport concerned enough about a Monday exodus that it tried to banish Uber arrivals to a nearby train station.

That rerouting didn’t fully work — most Uber and Lyft drivers continued dropping off passengers at the terminal as usual — but other extraordinary steps by Miami International Airport kept operations on track while facing an expected record for total departures on a single day.

“I’ve been to six Super Bowls.,” said Boston resident Ralph Dangelmaier, after he and his family checked their luggage in a temporary remote kiosk American Airlines set up at MIA’s rental-car center. “This one has been the easiest.”

Greg Chin, spokesman for MIA, said the airport expected as many as 80,000 people to leave on Monday. That would top the last record for departures at the growing facility, when the post-holiday rush saw about 75,000 people fly out Jan. 5.

For the Monday after the Super Bowl, MIA had extra staffing, and more pre-check options to keep lines moving, Chin said. Homeland Security also set up a table where departing passengers could stop if they needed to fly out but had lost their photo identification cards.

Chin said wait times have been on track for a normal Monday. “Things have been totally smooth,” he said.

“No lines anywhere @iflymia either at check in or security,” Richard Kerr, an editor at the travel site thepointsguy.com, wrote on Twitter shortly after 8:30 a.m. “Impressive compared to Atlanta last year the day after the Super Bowl.”

Chin said the airport’s announced policy of diverting arriving Uber and Lyft drivers to the Miami Intermodal Center ended up not being the sweeping change that was planned. The facility is linked with MIA by an automated train arriving every minute, and serves as a transportation hub that houses a rental-car center and Metrorail station. Last week, MIA announced plans to have ride-hailing drivers use the facility for drop-offs on Monday.

“That’s the first time we’ve done that,” he said. “Most Uber and Lyft drivers still came to the terminal.”

One Super Bowl complication didn’t seem to be holding up the lines inside. Signs greeting passengers at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints had a warning: “Don’t pack your Super Bowl LIV Program!” the poster-style signs said. “For security purposes, place your commemorative program in a screening bin when going through TSA.”

Chin said the most recent Super Bowl cities of Atlanta and Minneapolis dealt with the same issue of programs having to be removed from carry-on bags. “The book is made of a material that has metallic components,” Chin said. “It blocks the view of the machines from looking into the bag.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Super Bowl 54 set a record for people leaving Miami. How MIA handled the crush.."