Sep. 24—TINICUM — Delaware County receives in excess of $3 billion in economic benefits from the Philadelphia International Airport, according to airport interim CEO Keith Brune.
And, although that's not the $4 billion received in prepandemic figures, Brune said there's a lot of promise for revenue generating at the transportation hub, particularly with cargo.
"We're happy to have a great partner in Delaware County," Brune, whose formal title is Interim CEO and COO for the City of Philadelphia Division of Aviation, said. "A lot of people don't realize it but 70 percent of the airport is actually in Delaware County."
Of the 3.2 million square foot, nearly 2,600-acre facility, all but one of the four runways and Terminal A West, A East and parts of Terminal B and all of Cargo City are within Delco limits.
Brune spoke Friday at a Delaware County Chamber of Commerce event at the Lazaretto Ballroom in Essington where he shared what the last few years at the airport have been like and where the airport is headed.
The airport, like most other industries, was not immune to the pandemic.
In 2019, Philadelphia International Airport recorded about 33 million passengers and 390,000 takeoffs and landings. That same year, the airport averaged 93,000 passengers going through the terminals each day.
In April 2020, Brune said, "We handled 125,000 passengers that month, what we would normally do in 28 hours."
"So," he added, "we crashed really bad, really fast and we're clawing our way back."
One sign is more frequent sightings of the business traveler.
"We've noticed over the last month and a half or so, our business travel is coming back and that's always kind of the bellwether," Brune said. "Pre-pandemic, we had about 45 percent of our passengers were business and about 55 percent leisure. During the pandemic, we were around 5 percent, 10 percent business travel. And, those numbers are back up around 40 percent on certain days of the week."
Overall, he said the airport is about 78 percent of prepandemic numbers for passenger traveling.
Cargo becoming key
The CEO also presented a brewing growth opportunity for the facility.
"Cargo is really the bright spot," he said.
In 2019, the airport handled 607,500 tons of cargo. In 2021, that increased to 643,138 tons.
"Even through the pandemic, when we were not able to take international passengers from Europe, British Airways, Lufthansa and American Airlines flew passenger airplanes back and forth only carrying cargo," Brune explained.
Part of cargo's success has not only been the pandemic but also its growth opportunity within the airline industry.
"Our cargo has gone up considerably," Brune said. "We've been on a steady increase about 1 percent, 2 percent per month."
Shortly before the pandemic, the airport had completed a cargo study that looked at the Mid-Atlantic Catchment Region, an area about 400 miles around the facility. It found that this contained a $53 billion economic impact for cargo.
"We capture 9 percent of that," Brune said.
While realizing this airport would not get 100 percent of that, he said another 5 to 10 percent would have a huge impact.
To give another perspective, Brune said John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York has 4 million square feet devoted to cargo and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey has approximately 2.5 million square feet for cargo.
Comparatively, Philadelphia has 450,000 square feet.
The next moves
"So it's very difficult to compete to that and admittedly, we have had a focus for the last 40 years on passenger airlines," he said as he outlined steps to change that.
One is the relocation of Tinicum Island Road around the western perimeter of the airport.
"We just broke ground on that within the last week or so," Brune said.
Another area of focus will be improving access on and off Interstate 95 related to the airport. This is in the preliminary planning stages, including conversations with Delaware County and PennDOT officials.
"We believe that is really going to improve the traffic flow on Governor Printz Boulevard and (Route) 291 and keep all of that vehicular traffic out of the communities," Brune said.
Another part will be wetland mitigation to prepare the western part of the airport for the cargo expansion. Brune said he anticipated that it will take another year or two to develop the 30 acres in FDR Park in Philadelphia, which the airport is paying for to offset the 3 or 4 acres that will be needed for the expansion.
Earlier this month, Philadelphia's Division of Aviation and Aviation Facilities Co. announced they would be partnering with Menzies Aviation to build a 150,000-square-foot cargo facility at the airport over the next couple of years.
Brune added that the airport is speaking with other developers whom they hope to share over the next year.
Over the next eight to 10 years is when the airport expects to complete the full western cargo expansion.
Brune said that the airport acquired the 136 acres needed for that development a few years ago. With that, officials have completed some preliminary planning and expect to get about 1 million square feet into that space dedicated for cargo.
Brune said that million square feet, when fully developed, would support about 6,000 permanent high-paying jobs.
"We're very excited about these opportunities," he said.
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