AirportBusiness Blogs

Today’s headlines bring home how it infiltrated an industry…

His name is Moussaoui, and headlines of late center around his trial as the only person arrested in the U.S. alleged to be directly tied to the 9/11 killings. This week, the prosecution brought on a former FBI agent and FAA security official to testify what has become obvious - the warning signs were there for those who were looking. A couple of flight schools were; national commissions were (NCARC; The Gore Commission); but the American people, and thus governmental Washington, weren’t. (Which, of course, is why no definitive domestic security initiatives were undertaken in the 1990s to address the threat.)

The testimony this week about the role of U.S. flight schools led to a little investigation of the role flight schools played, including a brief scan once again of the official “9/11 Commission” report. The search identifies ties to flight training operations in Arizona, California, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Oklahoma. This probably is not a complete list.

Many industry security initiatives have been undertaken since 9/11; some mandated, many not. Still, revisiting the reality of 9/11 is a good reminder as to why all of this is truly necessary.

(Watch for an update from next week’s Aviation Industry Expo in Las Vegas.)

Thanks for reading.

DFW AIRPORT - Sitting in a room in the DFW Grand Hyatt, looking out upon a sea of aviation and on toward the skyline of Dallas to the east, one turns to the thoughts of the day’s events. This is a Peer Review Group meeting, a sort of ‘lessons learned’ from the folks at DFW to other interested parties about their $2.7 billion capital improvement program of the past seven years. It includes this hotel, which the DFW authority owns, and the new international/domestic Terminal D, as modern as a terminal gets.

At such peer review meetings - hosted by Bill Fife of DMJM+Harris - attendees share their local projects, looking for input. The discussion turned to the concept of a mid-size commercial airport building a terminal from ground up, replacing an unrecoverable old facility. Bottom line is, it’s an interesting time to be building a terminal that needs to serve as the window to the community for a couple of decades or more. There’s an opportunity to have vision, or to totally miss the mark.

So, from one who has never built, designed, choreographed, or managed an airport, the recommendation for such a project in today’s environment is: Make it all common use. No individual ticketing counters. Direct all entry into a common area that processes ticketing and baggage check-in (in-line screening, of course). Once passengers get through screening, they’re free to find their way, or spend money on concessions. Quite simple, actually, and a good guess on where the industry is going.

Yet, for the mid-size commercial airport, resistance from the carriers causes a community to not take a gamble on the airport of tomorrow (which, of course, is what they are trying to build). While the days of airlines controlling airport decisions are quickly fading, it remains a gamble to go against the airlines’ grain. For smaller communities, at least, it seems local control on airport utilization is becoming a necessity.

Thanks for reading.

Just a potential windfall, or a sign of things to come? -

You have to give ‘Da Mayor’ of Chicago credit for looking outside the box on this one. While some - as in this space — have questioned his O’Hare Modernization Plan and steadfast refusal to embrace the proposed new airport in nearby Peotone, his consideration of the privatization of Midway Airport may have merit. The concept of leasing airports to private entities is well accepted in international circles, but is an idea that has been rejected by most U.S. airport interests to date. There are exceptions: Stewart International Airport north of New York City is under a 99-year lease with British-owned National Express Group and JFK’s Terminal 4 was built and is operated by a private consortium.

The Midway proposal comes on the heels of last year’s leasing by the city of the Chicago Skyway toll road to Australian-based Macquarie, which also has interests in international airports. In that deal, Chicago received $1.83 billion, which injected much-needed cash into the city’s coffers.

Central to the Midway move is maintaining its property tax-exempt status, which the Illinois Senate this week approved.

At a time when the Bush Administration is proposing cutting more than $700 million from the Airport Improvement Program and FAA is calling for new funding mechanisms to finance the aviation system in this country, Mayor Daley’s proposal could turn out to be leading edge. The Chicago Tribune this week quoted the mayor as saying, in light of state and federal budget proposed cuts, “you sit there … or you look for revenue.” He may be right on this one.

Thanks for reading.

WASHINGTON - The latest version of the FAA’s ten-year prognosticating event, its annual Forecast Conference held here Feb. 28-Mar. 1, is back to predicting that the air carrier industry should see a billion passengers per year by the end of the forecast period. The two hottest items of interest at the conference include the entry this year of the new very light jets (VLJs) and a Congressional reauthorization funding debate that will be ongoing for the next 18 months.

Regarding theVLJs, at this point no one can clearly predict their ultimate impact on the marketplace, but FAA - and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association - foresee some 100 units entering the market this year, with another 350-500 units coming off the assembly line for several years to come. While some see the VLJs as having a significant impact on the corporate aviation sector, the biggest wildcard here seems to be their integration into the air taxi (FAR Part 135) market. Several firms are positioning their futures on this concept, which could generate revenues/activity for fixed base operations and airports as well. On the latter, it’s predicted that many airports which traditionally have not been airfields used by corporate aviation will begin to see such activity.

The funding debate to date is squaring off into two distinct areas: 1) FAA and ATA (Air Transport Association) see a need to come up with a more “cost-based” user fee system, which is expected to draw more tax revenues from corporate aviation; and 2) general aviation/bizav groups who see the current method of fuel excise taxes as being the fairest approach. In simplest terms, the airlines argue that many of the tax revenues generated by them for the Aviation Trust Fund support an ATC system used by others and investment in secondary (reliever) airports which they don’t access. GA groups counter that the system was created for the air carriers, and the reliever airports exist to keep commercial airports less congested so that the carriers have more complete access. And, of course, central to this debate is the modernization of the air traffic control system.

When it comes to funding, we’ve been here before. Chip Barclay, president of the American Association of Airport Executives perhaps said it best when he called for FAA and industry to come up with a reliable, stable funding equation that will be predictable for the long term.

Thanks for reading.