Larger planes affect Eastern Iowa Airport budget

As airlines serving The Eastern Iowa Airport have replaced smaller 50-seat regional jets with larger 66-, 70-, and 76-seat aircraft, the number of passengers flying out of Cedar Rapids has declined 2.6 percent in the current fiscal year and operating revenue has decreased 0.4 percent.

Donald Swanson, airport director of finance and administration, told the Cedar Rapids Airport Commission on Monday that restaurant and rental cars concession revenue, and revenue from customer facility charges and passenger facility charges are expected to level off or show a small decrease in fiscal year 2017. Parking revenue is expected to rise moderately due to a May 2015 short-term parking rate increase.

All of the revenue sources are directly or indirectly dependent on passenger traffic and account for 90 percent of the airport's annual operating revenue. With lower diesel and gasoline prices, travelers may be driving, rather than flying to their destinations.

The Eastern Iowa Airport is a self-sustaining entity and does not receive any city or county property tax revenue.

Despite charter traffic generated by the Iowa Hawkeyes' trip to the Rose Bowl last month, the airport is expected to end calendar year 2015 with a total of 1.1 million passengers, down slightly from 1.13 million passengers in calendar 2014.

The commission on Monday approved a 2017 fiscal year budget that includes gross revenue of $34.5 million and gross expenditures of $30.5 million. Gross revenue will be 10.03 percent less than FY2016 and gross expenditures will be 21.52 percent less than FY2016.

The largest item in the $9.6 million FY2017 capital improvement budget is the third phase of the $50 million passenger terminal remodeling project.

Of the total, $2.1 million will be spent for new flooring, lighting, windows, skylights, and construction of a covered walkway east of the terminal building to the rental car parking lot. Another $4.1 million is budgeted for architectural and engineering design work, project bidding, and start of construction to expand the security checkpoint from two lanes to four and add a second floor to concourse B to provide additional space for passengers.

'With Allegiant and Frontier operating out of concourse B, the hold room is too small for the size of aircraft boarding there,' Swanson said. 'We need to consider our terminal modernization program.'

Swanson said the FY2017 budget anticipates 550,400 passengers flying out of the airport, a 5.3 percent decrease from the FY2016 budget forecast of 580,900 passenger enplanements.