Airport Experience News Fall 2022

perspective, he says. And lower fees on connecting traffic would “not excessively discourage” small community air service that typically operates with a stopover at a hub. Other Sources The popularity of public private partnerships to help finance terminal projects or key aspects of projects in U.S. airports has ebbed and flowed in recent decades. There have been a handful of high profile projects, such as the redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport (LGA), terminal projects at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), and a few others, but the method hasn’t taken hold on a broad-based level. Van Beek notes that the ebb and flow is more perception than reality. The P3 market is “chunky” he points out, because the ones undertaken in the U.S. market are typically very high profile, massive projects. “When one is not going on, it looks like P3s are going down, but when one is underway it looks like they’re on the rise,” he says. Some smaller projects are beginning to get traction, he adds, and more likely on the horizon. “If there are fewer federal dollars for infrastructure spending and there are lower PFCs, because Congress doesn’t raise it, I think the inevitable result will be more P3s,” Van Beek says.

“It’s important for people to understand that P3s don’t create money, but they do bring money forward,” he continues. If you have a 30-year concession and a private operator agrees to build it, manage and operate it, they can recover their investment over 30 years, and they can make money. Whereas an airport can never make that investment if there’s not enough PFC money or AIP funds. At the end of the day, there’s got to be a mechanism to be able to build and update your infrastructure. And if it doesn’t come from the federal government, and if it can’t come from the airports through a PFC, then you’re going to see more public private partnerships.” Going forward, it will be a combination of public and private investment that will be invested to ensure airports in the United States are modernized and maximized for air travel over the next several decades. In announcing grant awards from the bipartisan infrastructure law, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said that “Americans ought to have the best airports in the world.” Whether through traditional funding methods, infrastructure law funds, private money or other means, U.S. airport executives are on a quest to ensure that they do.

Above: The new LaGuardia Terminal B (arrivals level pictured) was built under a public-private-partnership. LaGuardia Gateway Partners (LGP) is the manager and developer of the terminal.

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