COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Colorado Springs Airport officials plan to limit a spending increase next year amid forecasts that passenger traffic will fall to a 15-year low.
With several airlines cutting flights to cope with high fuel costs, the airport is forecasting a 1.6 percent drop in traffic next year to slightly more than 1 million passengers. That’s the fewest since 791,045 passengers boarded departing flights in the first year the current passenger terminal was open in 1994.
The forecast in the airport’s 2009 budget is an about-face from a forecast in February, when Frontier Airlines announced plans to launch service between Colorado Springs and Denver. Airport officials then forecast a 4 percent jump in traffic for this year. They now expect traffic this year to fall 1.5 percent from 2007 to 1.02 million passengers.
The airport plans an 0.8 percent increase in spending next year to $21.8 million to cover increased benefit costs and retirement contributions and higher utilities costs, said Cheryl Schwab, the airport’s finance and administration manager. Airport revenue is forecast to fall 2.3 percent to $24.4 million, mostly due to an expected decline in revenue from its parking and rental cars concession operators.
The budget would have airlines paying $9.08 per departing passenger next year, a 6.6 percent increase that follows a 3.9 percent hike imposed in July.
“We are keeping our spending essentially the same, but there is nothing we can do about the decline in passengers,” said Gisela Shanahan, the airport’s assistant aviation director of finance and administration. “The cost per passenger is simply the total cost of operating the airfield and the terminal and dividing it by the number of passengers. When the number of passengers goes down, the cost per passenger increases.”
The City Council is expected to consider the airport’s budget in December.
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Information from: The Gazette,
