AirTran Deal for Orlando HQ Is at Risk
AirTran executives and economic-development officials have quietly begun renegotiating terms of the $5.4 million deal, which calls for state and local governments to build AirTran a hurricane-hardened command center at Orlando International Airport in exchange for a pledge from the airline to remain in Orlando.
The problem? That incentive deal includes provisions requiring AirTran to add 121 jobs during the next three years and spend $2.2 million outfitting the new center. But AirTran has been hammered by high fuel prices in the months since that agreement was announced in January, forcing the airline to lay off employees and cut capital spending.
That will make it difficult for AirTran to uphold its end of the bargain.
AirTran would not discuss details Wednesday of its talks with economic-development agencies.
"We are currently committed to building the SOC [Systems Operations Control] facility in Orlando," spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver wrote in an e-mail. "But in the shift in business environment that has occurred this year . . . we are working with the state of Florida and the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority on a plan that works best in the current economy."
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