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

Zurich, a ”good” airport ? (...) 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 What the passengers thinkWhat the investors think ZRH = goodZRH = not so good source: ubs.com/quotes

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

Business Measures  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  The concept of the “work load unit” (WLU) - one passenger or 100kg of cargo - amalgamation where it makes sense

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

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

Example: Lufthansa’s Project Allegro at Frankfurt Service Measures source: G. Theis, ICAT

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

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

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

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