CALGARY — The Calgary International Airport is the most fiscally efficient airport in the country, according to a study released Wednesday by an aviation think-tank based at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business.
It was also fourth overall in North America for airports serving less than 15 million passengers a year.
The Air Transport Research Society, headquartered at Sauder, compared the fiscal efficiency of 156 airports and 19 airport groups in North America, Europe, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region in its 2011 ATRS Global Airport Benchmarking Report.
Jody Moseley, director of corporate communications and marketing for the Calgary Airport Authority, said the ranking was not a surprise.
“We’ve always been among the lowest in fees. We take the responsibility of being fiscally responsible as an organization very seriously,” she said. “So we do a number of things just to make sure that we always are.
“What we do as well as an airport authority is we look at diversifying our revenue so that we have a number of revenue generation sources coming in. So commercial revenue is important as well because what that does is offset the need for reliance on airline fees alone. Because we have a really robust concession program as well as a number of other programs that diversify our revenue, it really helps us develop the business. And because all those things come into play it really lowers and maintains fees among the lowest in the country and that really helps our partners as well.”
Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL), one of the world’s busiest international airports is also the most fiscally efficient overall, said the report.
The report, produced by a team of international aviation academics led by Sauder researcher Tae Oum, revealed that airports in Atlanta, Copenhagen, Oslo, Hong Kong and Sydney are the leaders in their respective continents for efficiency among international airports serving more than 15 million passengers a year.
“Our report shows that the world’s most efficient airports are supplementing core income with money generated through non-aeronautical revenue streams, such as parking, office rentals, retail activity and real estate development,” said Professor Oum, president of ATRS.
“Our benchmarking report also shows that more efficient airports tend to offer lower aircraft landing fees and passenger terminal charges, ultimately leaving more money in the pockets of travellers.”
Findings of the 2011 report are based on analysis of data from 2009 collected by the ATRS research team and guided by 14 leading academics from Asia, Europe, North America and Australia.
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