, little attention has been paid to the equally airports that send passengers into the sky and welcome them back to earth. Yet those costly, crucial centers have been just as badly impacted by the collapse of air travel demand.
Airports, which largely take the form of private-public partnerships in the US, typically rely on a variety of ancillary sources for revenue. Things like parking, rental cars, revenue sharing schemes with in-terminal retailers, and more contribute. As travel demand has dried, airports have come to rely on airline landing fees as their primary source of revenue, according to a research note from analyst Julie E. Meyer at Moody's. And it's not enough.
Most of that — $1.75 billion — will go to "primary service airports," those with more than 10,000 annual departing passengers. Another $45 million is reserved for smaller and general aviation airports, while $200 million will provide relief for stores and restaurants in airport terminals on rent and other fees.
Of particular importance, Meyer and the Moody's team wrote, is the assistance to airport tenants. While airports have implemented a variety of their own relief programs for these businesses, in the interest of keeping crucial relationships in place to enable an eventual recovery, they were unlikely to be able to afford them much longer.