Private Airports

The majority of the 7,400 airports in the United State are publicly owned. The land, runways, taxiways, and other infrastructure are titled to municipalities and airport authorities that are often governed by boards of directors appointed by multiple jurisdictions. A good example and one I am very familiar with is the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority or MWAA. While MWAA is typical of other airport authorities, its history is unique. The two major Washington, DC airports, Reagan National and Dulles International, were originally owned by the Federal Government and operated by the FAA for many years. For as long as I can remember (which is before World War II and I won’t disclose the year), National Airport, and beginning in 1962, Dulles Airport operations and development were subject to the whims of Congress. The most visible evidence of this was the dozens of parking spaces marked Reserved for Members of Congress a few steps from the airport’s front door.

The real and somewhat hidden problem was money. Congress controlled the purse stings. Dollars needed for operations, and capital improvements had to be appropriated by Congress and were expense lines in the Federal budget. Long range planning was one year. Airport employees were government employees. Hiring and firing practices were subject to Federal regulations. In the late 1980’s Congress saw the light and leased these airports to the newly formed MWAA. (Of course part of the deal was a continuation of the parking perks.) Overnight these airports were transformed into modern marvels of air transportation. The private capital markets provided billions in bond financing after carefully buying into long-term plans for the airports. The FAA airport employees left the Federal till and became private employees of MWAA. Freed of the chains of government, the cream, and there was a lot of it, rose to the top and more miracles happened. All this was led by my friend Jim Wilding who spent most of his career with the FAA beginning as an engineer. Jim was always a great leader and visionary, but MWAA gave him the opportunity to really shine.

Today we have yet another new airport model emerging. The FAA has a pilot program to privatize a few airports. The most notable is Chicago Midway. Chicago got a taste of what privatizing can do when they leased the Chicago Skyway toll bridge to Australia’s Macquarie Bank for $1.8 billion for 99 years. In many ways Midway reminds me of the old rundown National Airport. Hopefully privatization will shine a new light on Midway. As with highway funds, airport funding is finding stiff competition for a share of Federal dollars in the face of growing deficits, as well as disaster, terror, and war funding.

Let government regulate and private industry operate. It should be the American way.

For a history of airport privatization worldwide read Bob Poole’s 1998 address to AAAE, Why Airport Privatization's Time Has Come.
(Next the conundrum of general aviation airports.)