ABSTRACT
A broader assessment of overall profitability can be obtained from the ACI which produces the most comprehensive global economic surveys. The 2001 survey covered 620 airports which collectively handled over 2.1 billion passengers, or about two thirds of all ACI members traffic in 2001 (ACI, 2002). The survey identified trends in airport economics by geographical region but some distortions may have arisen because of the composition of the sample used. This seemed to be particularly the case with the Africa/Middle East airport where the influence of the performance of a few large airports may have resulted in a disproportionate effect on the results of this region or with the Latin America/Caribbean airports where the Brazilian airports dominated the sample. Overall, the ACI survey found that in 2001 a net profit of US$ 630 million was made at all the airports which represented
about 1.5 per cent of total revenues – down from about 2 per cent in 2000 – with the North American airports as a group making a loss of nearly 1 billion dollars after a modest profit of US$ 160 million in 2000. The overall net margin was much lower than for the 50 major airports because this survey covered many smaller airports which tend to be less profitable. Profits before tax, interest, depreciation and amortization (in international accounting terms known as EBITDA) were around US$ 12.6 billion which represented about a 30.0 per cent margin of total revenues in 2001, down from 32.4 per cent in 2000. The Asia/Pacific airports had the highest EBITDA margin of just over 43 per cent. Predictably, given the 11 September, 2001 events, the North American airports had the lowest margin of 18 per cent – although the profit levels of many US airports tend to be relatively low in most years because of the unique way in which they are financed.
