Originally Posted by
Piltdown Man
"...revenue per pax is falling..." is an interesting term. Airports are forgetting why they exist. They are there to provide a service to airlines and in turn, the passengers of these airlines. They are not hotels, shopping centres, restaurants, retailers, hairdressers etc. Unfortunately their greed knows no bounds and they chisel, pry and prise every bloody cent out of their victims, because that's what they are.
PM
Before the lo-co boom airports were predominantly government owned/run. Over the years they have been sold to private investors. Management are duty bound to show return on investment, so more passengers and/or more revenue every year to justify any capital investment in terminals/runways, etc.
Concurrently airlines like FR demanded low charges from airports who couldn't afford to turn away their business - the likes of Hann, Charleroi, Beauvais, Liverpool, etc Essentially a perfect enviornment for "competition" and "free market" spiral to the bottom has occurred. Thats meant shops where seats used to be. Minimum-wage ground handling monopolies where careers used to be. Thats what we, as customers, asked for. These are the consequences of cheap fares. The difference in farming, call centres, etc is the burdens of lowering costs are put on employees/animals, rather than the end customer.
The exponential growth of FR, U2, W6 while the network airline groups like AF/KL, LH and IAG continue to grow and lower their cost bases, headline fares and the size of premium cabins demonstrate what the travelling public want - low fares.