The surprise news that a second scheduled airline wants to start flying from Vero Beach just three months from now has Vero Beach Regional Airport director Todd Scher scrambling.

“My hair has been getting grayer exponentially,” Scher said last week.

He also knows the arrival of JetBlue – the nation’s sixth-largest airline – is likely to place a noticeable strain on Vero Beach Regional Airport’s already-cramped passenger terminal.

And you can be sure he is already thinking about the challenges of winter – when weather delays and flight cancellations wreak havoc on the schedules of airlines that focus heavily on serving airports in the Northeast.

“We’re very much aware of what we might need to contend with,” Scher said. “Unfortunately, I’m not in a position yet to tell anyone how we’re going to deal with it.”

You can almost see the result of those weather delays now: Multiple jets on the ground here, filled with arriving passengers eager to deplane through the Vero airport’s one gate, and departing passengers crammed into a small terminal not built or equipped to handle such crowds.

“We’ve seen those situations with just Breeze here,” Scher said, recalling days when two of the airline’s jets were on the ground, plus a third airplane parked after the flight was diverted from Tampa. “It happens more than you think.

“We know bad weather happens, and we’ll try to alleviate the strains on our facility the best we can,” he added. “We’re looking at a lot of different things, but we’ll just take it case by case and do the best we can.

“Right now, though, we’re just trying to figure out how to handle the aircraft on the ground and the people we’ll have coming through the terminal – in good weather.”

Scher said the terminal building has a capacity of 180 people, but passengers might feel squeezed when more than 120 – a number that would fit on one plane – are there at the same time.

Scher said more than 300 Breeze flights arrived and departed Vero Beach in March, when over 1,000 people per day passed through the terminal. Add JetBlue’s planned flights this winter and …

“It’s a heck of a lot of people through this airport,” Scher said.

City Manager Monte Falls said there are no definitive plans for expanding the terminal – a project that was not even in the city’s five-year capital plan because, until JetBlue’s surprise announcement, there had been no reason to consider it.

“While we’ve had people from other airlines talking to us, we never had anything solid,” Falls said. “It’s a big and costly project, one that needs to be a necessity before we even think about it.

“So before we rush into anything,” he added, “we need to make sure the carriers we have now are here for the long term and not just kicking tires.”

For now, though, Falls and Scher are focused on the city’s multimillion-dollar upgrade of the current terminal.

An expansion of the baggage-claim area is one element of a terminal renovation project that includes the construction of permanent, covered, open-air walkways connecting the terminal to the fence line for boarding and deboarding passengers.

Plans also include construction of a permanent covered open-air waiting area for people meeting incoming flights.

In addition, the project will provide a similarly covered outdoor “sterile area” for outgoing passengers who’ve been through their security checks and are waiting to board their flights.

“People will have the option of staying inside, which can get a little crowded, or they can spill over to the outside area,” Scher said. “That area will be expanded, and we’ll install benches and chairs.”

Arriving passengers might most appreciate the new ADA restrooms that will be built along the terminal-exit area – en route to the parking lot – in the former C.J. Cannon’s restaurant banquet rooms.

The airport enhancements, however, will reach beyond the terminal: Scher said the project includes improvements to both the short-term and long-term parking lots.

Installing LED lighting for security, adding left-turn lanes for improved traffic flow and creating a GoLine bus stop are planned for the short-term lot.

The long-term lots, meanwhile, will be expanded to provide an additional 113 paved parking spaces and 40 more spaces in an overflow grass lot. LED lighting will be installed, as will an irrigation system for new landscaping.

“We hope all the improvements on the passenger-terminal side will be done before JetBlue initiates service,” Scher said, adding that he expects the parking project to also be completed by then.

Scher said the city’s budget for fiscal 2025-26 includes two additional part-time employees and one full-time airport operations position, as well as a second police officer dedicated to the facility.