Rightsizing Airport Infrastructure for Future Success

It was a packed house at one of the last sessions of the day on Tuesday, and deservedly so. The panelists all shared some amazing stories about rightsizing – from all different perspectives – and were candid and forthcoming about what happened, contributing factors, their responses, what surprised them and what they could have done differently. Also, they supplied some real-life examples that supported a comment made by moderator Chellie Cameron, CEO at Philadelphia International Airport, when opening the session: “It is not just infrastructure that has to be changed when airports make decisions.” 

TOO BIG: Reg Wright, President and CEO at Gander International Airport Authority, retold the Gander “international lounge” story in a lighthearted manner, but the realities of what this airport is struggling with are anything but comical. “I am trying to operate an airport for aviation as it existed in 1957,” said Wright. And, around that time, it was decided that an international lounge of gigantic proportions (about a third of the size of the airport) was necessary. Now, “our operating costs are 10% of our annual expenditures,” said Wright, and mostly due to this Modernist lounge. But there is nostalgia associated with the lounge and many, especially those who have lived in the community for a while, do not want to see anything happen to it.  Wright said this whole problem would not exist if things had been done differently at the planning stage. “The pubic consultation process was weak.” 

TOO FAST:  At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Airport Director Lance Lyttle has a different challenge. Sea-Tac is growing too fast.  In just one year, they went from the 13th busiest to 9th busiest, said Lyttle. “We have seen tremendous growth taking place.”

So, the challenges there are with building fast enough to keep up, with having enough land to do so, and with their community outreach.  Not everyone likes to see airports expand, and when public meetings come around there would be very vocal opposition. While there is a silent majority that wants to see the airport grow, “they won’t even show up at a public meeting,” said Lyttle. So, Lyttle started a group called START that has members from airlines, FAA, city managers and the vocal community. “The objective of the group is to look at practical solutions we could put in place… Let’s work toward a solution instead of just complaining.” 

RAPID DOWNSIZING:  Scott Brockman, President and CEO at Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, said, “We were just humming along” then everything started to turn when Northwest Airlines and Delta filed for bankruptcy at the same time, followed a few years later by a merger.  After the merger, they started to unwind the hub at Memphis and scaled back their flights from 250 flights per day to 19. The number of leased gates went from 83 to 17. 

“The piece that we were not prepared for was the psychological impact on the community,” said Brockman. “It was a pretty ugly situation.” The number of people working on site per day went from 6,500 to 3,200 and the ones who were left were still angry. 

However, “the more transparent we became, the more you could feel the tide turning,” he said.  And, it was about controlling the story better too. They learned that it is better if “you are telling the story first instead of defending yourself from a negative perspective.”