Here’s Something U.S. Airports Do Well

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Travelers who admire airport efficiency should book their next flight through Atlanta. For the 13th consecutive year, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport placed first for performance in an annual ranking from the Air Transport Research Society, headquartered at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

The study, prepared by researchers at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, was unveiled June 26, 2016, during the society’s annual global conference in Rhodes, Greece. Using financial, traffic and capacity data from more than 200 airports worldwide, the authors ranked participants according to their operational efficiency.

Although U.S. airports may be efficient according to the ATRS report, other annual rankings, such as the Skytrax World Airport Awards, suggest that U.S. airports lag in service quality. Hartsfield-Jackson ranked No. 43 for customer satisfaction in the 2016 Skytrax survey, and no U.S. airport cracked the top 25.

The discrepancy does not surprise Smith School professor Martin Dresner, Air Transport Research Society president and CEO. He cites several reasons why U.S. airports must focus first on efficiency. For starters, he says, many U.S. airports are scrambling to serve growing populations with outdated and inadequate infrastructure.

“A number of U.S. airports are old and weren’t built to accommodate traffic volume that comes with airline hubs,” says Dresner, who organized the conference in Greece. “Most are operating at or beyond capacity.”

Hartsfield-Jackson opened a fifth runway in 2006 to keep pace with demand. But at the same time, annual traffic in Atlanta has swollen to more than 100 million passengers — outpacing the world’s second-busiest airport in Beijing by 10 million passengers.

Dresner says some key U.S. airports also lack modern connections between terminals. Hartsfield-Jackson has an underground Automated People Mover with trains arriving every two minutes, but other airports leave passengers scrambling to catch their connecting flights. “Flying in to one terminal and trying to get to another may mean exiting and reentering security check points, which is bad for connections,” Dresner says.

The strong dollar has created additional airport traffic because currency exchange rates give U.S. passengers new incentives to travel abroad. Finally, U.S. airports must deal with fluctuations in passenger screening services from the TSA. All of these factors contribute to congestion and raise the need for efficient operations.

The FAA recently estimated that the U.S. economy bled $22 billion from airport congestion and delays in 2012, and such losses are expected to reach $34 billion by 2020 and $63 billion by 2040.

Dresner says many airports want to expand, but following through may take many years due to environmental and financial concern. “Plus,” Dresner says, “an airport’s mainstay tenants, airlines and other vendors, may resist expansion, dreading the prospect of new competition.”

Despite the challenges, special circumstances have spurred two high-profile expansion projects. Renovations are under way at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) as the region bids for the 2024 Summer Olympics. And New York officials got into gear after Vice President Joe Biden compared LaGuardia Airport to a “third-world country” in 2014. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in June 2016 that planned improvements will help New York get its “mojo” back.

Dresner says airlines can also do their part to reduce congestion. Compared to their international counterparts, he says U.S. airlines do a poor job enforcing their baggage restrictions. “Right now it’s one carry-on bag and one personal item, but people take more,” Dresner says. “And the bags all have to be screened, slowing the lines.”

U.S. airports excel at doing more with less, and none performs better than Hartsfield-Jackson. But Dresner says U.S. airports, as a group, will continue to lag in service quality without more investments in technology and infrastructure.