Planning and Design of Airport Systems
( 1.231J / 16.781J )
Performance Measurement in Airports
Philipp Dietlin
December 10, 2002

Zurich, a ”good” airport ?
What the passengers think What the investors think
(...) I must say it is the heaven of hub airports in Europe, beating any other. (...)
Kim Larsen, transfering through ZRH
08/21/2002, on airlinequality.com
ZRH = good source: ubs.com/quotes
ZRH = not so good

Different Areas of Performance
 Business Performance Measures
- to assess the performance of airports in terms of financial outcomes
- concerned with profitability, efficiency etc.
 Service Performance Measures
- to assess the service delivered to the various customers
- concerned with service times, customer satisfaction etc.
 Environmental Performance Measures
- to asses external impacts of airport operations
- concerned with noise, energy, air quality etc.

Business Measures
 The concept of the “work load unit” (WLU)
- one passenger or 100kg of cargo
- amalgamation where it makes sense
 Measuring outputs against inputs
- inputs: employees, investments, etc.
- outputs: revenue, profit, WLUs etc.
- the higher the output/input ratio, the better the productivity of the input
 Examples
- operating margin = EBITDA / revenues
- WLU per employee

Business Measures
Example: WLU per employee source: caa.co.uk

Service Measures
 Measuring the quality of the services delivered
- various customers groups
- different needs and expectations
 Difficult to measure / standardize
- often qualitative in nature
- standards often arbitrary
- customer surveys / interviews
 Examples
- space in baggage claim area (m 2 per passenger)
- signage/userfriendliness

Service Measures
Example: Lufthansa’s Project Allegro at Frankfurt
Turnaround: LH745/14OCT02>LH456/15OCT02 DABTD LH744
Flight Inbound
LH745/14OCT02
Flight Outbound
LH456/15OCT02
Flight Routing
BKK > FRA
Flight Routing
FRA > LAX
STA
04:10
STD CDT
08:15 08:15
MinGT SkeGT AvaGT
2:45 4:05 4:02
EDT
-
COB
-
ATA Gate
04:13 INT
ATD DC
08:45 08:54 B23
ActGT
4:41
Pos
B23
B23
Delay ARR
0:03
Delay DEP
085 / 0:39
Delay GND
0:36
Process
Deboarding
Cleaning
Catering
Fueling
Boarding
Loading
Start
Target
Finish
04:15:00
04:15:00
04:33:00
05:55:00 07:20:00
06:25:00 07:25:00
06:50:00 07:35:00
07:35:00 08:05:00
08:10:00
Performance
Start Finish
04:16:19 04:38:00
04:39:06 06:12:21
06:24:00 07:18:09
06:13:57 07:30:16
08:06:34 08:45:22
04:15:12 08:43:59
Start
0:01:19
Delay
Finish
0:03:41
-
-
-
0:31:34
0:00:12
0:08:15
-
0:31:19
0:08:48
0:33:47 source: G. Theis, ICAT

Environmental Measures
 Often imposed by outside groups
- sometimes conditions for future expansion
 Performance standards unclear
- How loud is too loud ?
 Trend: ISO 14000 certification
- commitment to improve environmental management system
 Examples
- percentage of waste recycled (%)
- response time for complaints (days)

Environmental Measures
Example: Energy Consumption at Zurich Airport source: uniqueairport.com

Problem Areas
 comparing different airports
 tendency to measure what is easy to measure
 balancing conflicting measures
 defining standards

Why measuring performance ?
Only what is measured gets managed.
Gordon Bethune,
CEO of Continental Airlines