Miami airport’s $7 million runway-repaving project finishing next week

Miami International Airport expects the $7 million runway-repaving project that began three weeks ago on one of its runways will be finished on Oct. 9, an airport official said Friday.

Upon finishing repaving the 13,106-foot south runway, all four runways at South Florida’s biggest airport will be fully operational, airport spokesman Greg Chin said.

The work that began Sept. 18 played a role in some delayed flight arrivals on Thursday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The federal agency issued an advisory saying departure flights to Miami airport during a four-hour stretch in the afternoon and early evening were delayed an average of 78 minutes due to runway construction. The maximum delay was 175 minutes, the FAA said. For the full day, 71% of flights arrived at the airport on time.

Chin said the runway repaving Thursday “was compounded by weather issues, which then occurred at peak traffic time for the airport.”

On Friday, FAA flight delay warnings didn’t include Miami airport. With sunny weather, Chin said airport flight records show of the 247 flights that arrived at Miami airport by 4 p.m., 86% of them were on time, meaning within 15 minutes of scheduled flight times.

By comparison, in August, the last full month before runway repaving began, the airport had an overall on-time flight arrival rate of 73%.

The flight arrival numbers suggested that, “the runway being closed has not had a detrimental effect on our-time performance,” Chin said.

This story was originally published October 6, 2023 at 7:51 PM.