"Air traffic revives, but airports are squeezed by security costs"

Friday, October 15, 2004

Air traffic revives, but airports are squeezed by security costs  
By Don Phillips
The International Herald Tribune


LISBON - Air traffic worldwide roared back in the first half of this year,
rising 10 percent over all, but airports around the globe are caught in
multiple squeezes, from security to the sudden growth of low-cost airlines,
according to senior airport executives meeting here Thursday.

Robert Aaronson, director of Airports Council International, the
Geneva-based group that represents most of the world's airports, said that
the airport agenda continued to be dominated by security issues.

Passengers now are demanding to be treated less like slaves to security and
more like customers. In a written message to the group's annual convention,
Aaronson said "airports have found their prime real estate space devalued by
new security-driven changes in terminal design and passenger flows." 

Low-cost carriers are also increasing the demand for airport runway and
terminal space, but they often try to negotiate down the landing fees needed
for their growth. A proliferation of smaller regional jets also is making
increased demands on airspace and runway capacity. 

Airports throughout the world are usually owned and run by local
municipalities, and expansion is often supported by local taxes. But a
number of countries are experimenting with other systems, like private
ownership, including ownership by chains of management companies.

Often concessions and other activities at airports are not directly owned or
controlled by the airport itself.

But "political approval for additional aviation infrastructure to meet
growth requirements has never been more difficult and time-consuming,"
Aaronson told the convention, which started Wednesday and runs to Friday.

"Most governments have shirked the responsibility to pick up the financial
burden," Aaronson said, adding that even though security is a function of
government and not private industry.

For the first time since the terrorist attacks of 2001, airport managers
were meeting in a period of growth. International air traffic increased 17
percent in the first six months of 2004 from a year earlier, a bigger
rebound than the 10 percent overall rate including domestic as well as
international flights.

"After the shocks of the past few years, demand for air transport finally
has come roaring back," Aaronson said.

In the United States, security is the dominant problem, according to David
Plavin, president of the North American branch of Airports Council
International. The U.S. government jumped into airline security after Sept.
11, 2001, not realizing how much it would cost, and has shifted much of the
cost on airports and airlines, Plavin said. 

Problems between airport managers and security personnel are not getting
worse these days but they are not getting better either, Plavin said. The
relationship has "stabilized in a discomfort zone," he said.

Joanne Paternoster, an independent consultant who until recently was an
official with the New York airports, said travelers were beginning to demand
more of airports, particularly passengers who paid more for their flights. 

Some airports seemed to think that passengers should not expect so much of
airports, she said, but that was like telephone companies thinking customers
should say, "I should be thankful my telephone actually makes a call."

Airports only hurt themselves with such attitudes, Paternoster said: A
harried traveler will get to the airline gate and sit there rather than
visiting airport shops and restaurants.

Aaronson said that increased airport traffic was a good sign, but he warned
that travel could easily plunge again with more terrorist attacks. Airports
need to maintain greater financial reserves, and many airports have delayed
substantial growth projects for now, he said.

If air traffic suddenly declines, operators of concessions in airports -
restaurants, shops, and so on - want guarantees that the airports will take
measures to ease the pain. For the moment, no solution for such downturns
has been reached in most airports.

"We now must recognize that the demand for air transport is lifestyle
driven, and that lifestyle itself can be the very target of terrorists,"
Aaronson said.


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