The Pulse Report 
Informing Airport Finance Professionals
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"Since we operate like a private business, complete, equitable and transparent landing fee collection from PASSUR is smart, both to keep our airline customers happy and our revenue stream healthy."
Eric Clevenger
CFO, Kansas City
International Airport
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| October 2009 |
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Welcome to the October 2009 edition of The PASSUR® Pulse™ Report, an eNewsletter created exclusively for the Airport Finance community.
This month we're focusing on  how to use PASSUR Pulse to deal with billing challenges stemming from the proliferation of regional operations. We'll also discuss new ways airports are devising to maximize usage of scarce gate resources. Thanks for reading. As always, if you have ideas or questions, please send them over to me, Ron Dunsky, at rondunsky@passur.com. |
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Billing Accurately for Regional Carrier Operations
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With the proliferation of regional carrier contract flying, auditing and billing has become a much more complex process. The issue relates to "regional partner churn," where from month to month (or even week to week) the same flights can be operated by different regional carriers, making it hard to audit or bill correctly. A related problem is that, as regional carriers switch, the aircraft types and/or configurations change as well, affecting the billable weight. In fact, through multiple sample audits PASSUR has conducted for airports, regional carrier variability or "churn" is one of leading causes of revenue discrepancies and/or shortfalls.
The issue of changing regionals can be hard to keep up with for an airport. One day, you might have a flight operated by Chautauqua. The next month, or even the next week, that same flight could be operated by Mesa, Trans States or Air Wisconsin. Whether the airport bills the mainline carrier for all flights including regionals, or bills regionals separately, the problem remains: how do you audit the monthly activity if you don't know who operated the flight?
PASSUR landing fee management software allows you to easily identify the correct operator of the flight for an accurate audit of airline self-reports related to regional activity. If you subscribe to "proactive billing," it allows you to easily assign the right activity to the right invoice. And, because each flight is captured by tail number, exact certified landed weight by airframe is available for each operation. To learn more about using PASSUR Pulse for regional carrier billing, contact Evan Danto at evan.j.danto@passur.com. |
| Helping Constrained Airports Manage Scarce Gate Resources |
For an increasing number of airports, effective gate management is increasingly becoming a critical component of maximizing the efficient use of airport resources. One way airports have traditionally sought to maximize gate utilization is by mandating a minimum number of turns per gate, per day (or month) in their preferential lease agreements (and many PASSUR airports have used Pulse for years to audit operations-per-gate). Now however, some airports are considering changing t heir preferential gate lease programs to include minimum requirements for a certain number of passengers per gate, per day (or month).
The challenge becomes how to track (or audit) the number of passengers per gate, which is where PASSUR Pulse comes in. Pulse will give airports an exact accounting of every aircraft with seat counts per flight (including breakdown between First, Business and Coach) that touch each gate throughout the day. An automated monthly Gate Utilization and Passenger Volume Report uses load factors to generate an accurate passenger-per-gate profile.
This gives the airport a truly independent passenger volume-by-gate report. It also provides valuable information for concession planning (since passenger volumes by gate/time of day/day of week also provide visibility into concourse foot traffic patterns for concessionaires).
If you would like to learn more about the gate utilization auditing by turn and by passenger volumes, please contact Evan Danto at evan.j.danto@passur.com. |
Reminder: Monthly Summary Reports are Available to Help with Audits
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In addition to the traditional PASSUR Pulse detailed monthly reports of carrier landing activity, you can easily access summary reports that automatically roll up and tally landing totals and allow for a quick comparison with carrier self-reports. These "Monthly Summary" reports are a quick way to determine whether you have anomalies and discrepancies for the month, and to pinpoint where the problem is. To access the reports, go to the PASSUR Pulse Rev Archive and scroll to the bottom, where you will see the the button labeled "Summary Reports." There are two types of reports available:
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Summary of total flight counts by airline, sorted alphabetically by carrier name: This report totals up operations by carrier, and allows the user to enter self-reported numbers in an adjacent column, with variances then automatically calculated.
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Summary of each carrier's landing activity, split out by number of landings for each aircraft type (with landed weight per type): This report provides greater detail and is in a familiar format, similar to a typical airline self-report. Listing each carrier alphabetically, it rolls up landings for by aircraft type, tallying weights and fees for each. Airports enter self-reported numbers in adjacent columns, and variances in weights and fees are automatically calculated.
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