Private managers make terminals sparkle and hum the world over. Here we’re stuck with LaGuardia.
For once, Donald Trump was guilty of understatement. “Our airports are like from a Third World country,” he said during a debate year. It’s a common complaint but inaccurate: Comparing America’s airports with the Third World’s is unfair to the Third World.
Even in the poorest countries, a traveler can expect to reach the terminal by car. At New York’s LaGuardia Airport, traffic is so nightmarish that passengers jump from cabs along the highway and schlep their bags on foot. In the Third World, people typically fly out of their home city. At Newark Airport, the landing fees are so high that New Jerseyans often drive hours to Philadelphia to find affordable fares.
The highest-ranked American airport on the list of the world’s top 100, as determined by the Passengers Choice Awards, is Denver—at 28. Atlanta comes in at 43, Dallas at 58, Los Angeles at 91.
Why do American passengers pay so much to get so little? Because their airports, by global standards, are terribly managed.
Cities from London to Buenos Aires have sold or leased their airports to private companies. To make a profit, these firms must hold down costs while enticing customers with lots of flights, competitive fares and appealing terminals. The firm that manages London’s Heathrow, currently eighth in the international ranking, was so intent on attracting passengers that it built a nonstop express train to the city’s center. It’s also seeking to add another runway, as is the rival firm running Gatwick Airport.
American airports are typically run by politicians in conjunction with the dominant airlines, which help finance the terminals in return for long-term leases on gates and facilities. The airlines use their control to keep out competitors; the politicians use their share of the revenue to reward unionized airport workers. No one puts the passenger first.
New York City’s problems are even worse. All three of the major airports serving the city are under the control of a single agency, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Because the governors of those two states appoint the Port Authority’s executives and board, no single politician ever gets blamed.
Freed of competition, the Port Authority spends $156,000 in wages and benefits per worker. It also diverts profits from the airports to other projects...
Read the entire piece here at The Wall Street Journal
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John Tierney is a contributing editor at City Journal. Follow him on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal