A group of experts are debating whether to make Denver International Airport more independent, yet some say tinkering with a successful cash cow could cause turbulence.
A special panel appointed by Mayor John Hickenlooper is studying whether to convert DIA from a city enterprise to an agency resembling Denver Health or the Denver Water Board.
Some members of the mayor’s committee say DIA might be able to save money and operate more efficiently if it were more separate from city government.
“We ought to take advantage of every opportunity to reduce the costs at DIA,” said Del Hock, the former chairman of Public Service Co. of Colorado, who is co-chairman of the airport panel.
Still, it is too early to know what changes, if any, should be made in DIA’s management structure, Hock said. The group expects to make its recommendations to Hickenlooper next month.
Other panel members say the airport is one of Denver’s most successful operations and is in no need of a major fix.
“Denver has one heck of an airport,” a facility that is “efficiently run and making gobs of money,” said City Councilman Michael Hancock, the panel’s other co-chair.
DIA’s management might benefit “from some tweaking,” Hancock said, but “I am adamantly opposed to an independent authority” to run the airport.
Hancock’s views are expected to carry some weight, since he heads the City Council’s economic development committee, which oversees DIA.
Hickenlooper’s committee has been meeting for six months, and nearly all of its members agree that DIA is thriving.
The airport handled a record 42 million passengers in 2004 and has been producing healthy annual revenue surpluses for years.
Yet some officials say a more independent DIA could respond more quickly to a cataclysmic event in the aviation industry, such as the disappearance of one or more airlines that use the airport.
Without the current ties to city personnel rules and burdensome contracting requirements at city hall, the airport could react more nimbly, they say.
The underlying concern for the panel is the precarious financial condition of United Airlines, which accounts for about 60 percent of DIA’s flights, when United’s commuter airline partners are included.
United has been in bankruptcy for nearly 2 1/2 years and has yet to reach agreement with its unionized workers on a restructuring plan that would allow the company to emerge from bankruptcy protection.
United’s problems are not unique in the industry. In all, U.S. airlines have lost more than $30 billion over the past four years, and extremely high oil prices have clouded their hopes for financial recovery.
“The primary question is what specific changes are needed (at DIA) to help the airport manage through very difficult times in the airline industry,” said John Huggins, Denver’s economic development chief and Hickenlooper’s liaison with the panel that is reviewing the airport’s future.
Dr. Patricia Gabow, a member of the panel and Denver Health’s chief executive, offered data supporting the idea of making DIA a more independent agency. She extols the flexibility that her agency got in purchasing, contracting and hiring and firing when it was converted from a city department into an independent authority.
Yet a union official says the airport doesn’t need fixing. “I’m not sure where the inefficiencies are,” said Mark Schwane, of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union represents some Denver Health workers and about 200 city employees at DIA.
“The airport is a pretty productive place. Basically, it’s a cash cow,” said Schwane, executive director of the union’s Colorado council.
Excluding police officers and firefighters who work at the airport, DIA has about 900 city workers. When police and fire personnel are added, the number jumps to 1,100.
Thousands more work for firms that contract with the city to provide janitorial, parking, transportation and other services at the airport.
All the airline workers give the airport a total workforce of 30,000 people.
Former Denver aviation manager Jim DeLong says such an immense, complex enterprise can benefit from independent management.
But DeLong, who headed DIA for former Mayor Wellington Webb from 1993 to 1998, also is mindful of the political pressures at work to keep the airport within the orbit of city government.
“From the standpoint of DIA, an independent airport authority would be best,” said DeLong, who sits on the mayor’s airport panel. “However from the standpoint of the city of Denver, continued control would be best.”
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-820-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
