![]() PHL’s economic impact to the region is estimated to be at around $14 billion and it supplies around 50,000 jobs. ![]() They’re not a money-losing proposition anymore. Why do cities want ownership of airports? It also receives grants from the federal government. PHL gets its revenues by charging airlines for things like gate space and landing fees. Every dollar taken in by the airport must either be saved/invested or spent on the airport. Its operating budget has lately been $400 million-plus, but none of that money comes from the city’s general fund. If the city owns the airport, are my taxes paying for it? It was owned by the city and on the same land PHL is now. Philadelphia got its first airport in 1925. In the ’50s, when air travel became more common for the general public, airports started making money. Back then, a private enterprise would have struggled to take care of the airport grounds and wouldn’t have been interested even if it could because of the lack of ability to make profits. Commercial airlines didn’t start popping up until the ’30s and ’40s.Ĭities also provided the necessary maintenance. Every city needed one for the good of its public. Bednarek compared them to the railroads of the 19th century. An airport was something that a city needed to get on the map. There was basically no business to speak of. In the 1920s, a little over a decade after the Wright Brothers’ first flights, cities started building airfields largely for mail delivery. How did cities got involved in the airport business? The only significant outlier is the airport of Branson, Mo., which opened just a few years ago and is owned by Branson Airport, LLC. New York’s airports, for instance, are run by the Port Authority. Janet Bednarek, a Dayton University professor and author of several books about airports, flight and city development, said every major airport in the country is owned and operated by a city, county or public authority. So it’s normal for an international airport to be owned and operated by a city?Ībsolutely. Here’s who the airport’s executives report to and how Kenney is doing things differently than Nutter when it comes to the friendly skies above the City of Brotherly Love. But the concept of a publicly owned and operated airport goes back to the 1920s, when all a city needed for an airport was a large empty field and some serious financial backing for what was then a guaranteed loss of money.Īnd in a nutshell, that’s why PHL is still owned by the city of Philadelphia. It sounds kind of odd that a mayor would have the job of appointing a CEO, given that airports are major business centers and quite a bit different from other city-regulated services like schools and libraries. Earlier this month, Jim Kenney appointed Chellie Cameron as new CEO for PHL International Airport.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |