Jon Aren't the carriers contracts in place already? IIRC the primary carrier at most airports always got the sweetheart deal because of volume. Also the airports received enplanement money from the FAA for all passengers. This may have been modified recently with the PFC. The other carriers normally paid a premium fee to use the facilities. Al ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Wright" <jwright@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 1:39 AM Subject: Re: Airport official: replacement for United may be necessary > I understand completely about needing to cover their fixed costs, but if > United dies, they won't be able to cover their fixed costs and they'll need > to come up with an alternate source of funds. Presumably the other majors > would pick up most of the O/D traffic by increasing frequencies between > Denver and their hubs. That leaves the airport with, what, the sort of level > of service maybe SAN gets today? Busy, but nowhere near the amount of > business they get now. > > At that point they have a half-empty airport and they have to decide how > badly they want to be a hub. Given the state of the airline industry, I > don't see anyone building up a hub without a lot of incentives. And you'd > think discounted landing fees would be one of the incentives a potential > hubber would insist upon. > > Cheers, > Jon > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <B787300@xxxxxxx> > To: <AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 6:42 PM > Subject: Re: Airport official: replacement for United may be necessary > > > > And my point is that DEN has very high fixed costs to make required hefty > > bond payments that they sure as hell don't want to default on. They also > > have substantial maintenance and labor costs to operate the airport and > all > > these costs come from fees assessed to the airlines, tenants, rental car > > companies, limos, taxi, buses, etc. > > > > They can't lower the fees much for other new carriers because there won't > be > > enough revenue coming in to pay the bills. One scenario could be the > > governing board persuading the city and/or county to tax property owners > to > > subsidize the airport through property taxes, which would probably cause a > > firestorm of revolt against anyone voting in favor of such a measure.