Hello everyone,

As airport taxes are rising in main EU (LHR / CDG for instance) I'm curious to know if any airline in the world owns a whole aiport or some terminals?

Many thanks.

Netjets owns Egelsbach ...

Perhaps not in the first line of European airports, the operator of flights to the Aran Islands off the west of Ireland, operating as Aer Arann, owns the airport on the Connemara coast from which flights depart to the three Aran Islands.

(In a recent dispute about PSO services to the Islands, they offered to sell the airport to the state.)

PG (Bangkok Airways) owns Koh Samui Airport, unless I am mistaken.

Bangkok Airways has build and is owner of Koh Samui (USM), Sukhothai Airport (THS) and Trat Airport (TDX).
All are located in Thailand.

Mike

Lufthansa owns 40% of Terminal 2 in MUC

Prior to selling it, Porter Airlines owned the terminal at Toronto City-Centre airport (YTZ)

Manston used to be part of the same corporate group that also owned the airline based there

Southend airport has had overlap with an airline in recent years

Airport and airline having common majority (ie 50% or more ) ownership, particularly at small airports, rarely ends well. Competitor airlines tend to be wary of engagement with an airport if they expect a rival to receive preferential treatment. The interests of an airline are different and management typically make bad decisions in trying to manage this conflict of interests

Indirectly, aren't the airports and airlines essentially owned by the same entities in the ME3?

SteelChair wrote:

Indirectly, aren't the airports and airlines essentially owned by the same entities in the ME3?

Indirectly, aren't almost every larger legacy airline and airport essentially owned by the same entity since they get bailed out by the government each time they get in trouble

I believe that jetBlue, British Airways and American all own their respective terminals at JFK and rent the ground under them from the Port Authority. Terminal 1 also is owned by 4 airlines as a group.

stl07 wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

Indirectly, aren't the airports and airlines essentially owned by the same entities in the ME3?

Indirectly, aren't almost every larger legacy airline and airport essentially owned by the same entity since they get bailed out by the government each time they get in trouble

UAL, AA, and DAL have been bailed out once in 80 years, and that several years after being in an industry under direct attack by terrorists. Southwest and JetBlue have never been bailed out.

So, no.

SteelChair wrote:

stl07 wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

Indirectly, aren't the airports and airlines essentially owned by the same entities in the ME3?

Indirectly, aren't almost every larger legacy airline and airport essentially owned by the same entity since they get bailed out by the government each time they get in trouble

UAL, AA, and DAL have been bailed out once in 80 years, and that several years after being in an industry under direct attack by terrorists. Southwest and JetBlue have never been bailed out.

So, no.

Ummm....when were AA, UA & DL bailed out by the US government????

In the 90s, American built and owned what was Terminal C at RDU. It took years for the RDUAA to get ownership.

SteelChair wrote:

stl07 wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

Indirectly, aren't the airports and airlines essentially owned by the same entities in the ME3?

Indirectly, aren't almost every larger legacy airline and airport essentially owned by the same entity since they get bailed out by the government each time they get in trouble

UAL, AA, and DAL have been bailed out once in 80 years, and that several years after being in an industry under direct attack by terrorists. Southwest and JetBlue have never been bailed out.

So, no.

The world does't revolve around the US. I was more referencing other airlines but you proved my point for bringing up only all the legacies in America.

B6 isn't large and WN is not legacy


I was just having a little fun by extending your generalization about the ME3

727LOVER wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

stl07 wrote:

Indirectly, aren't almost every larger legacy airline and airport essentially owned by the same entity since they get bailed out by the government each time they get in trouble

UAL, AA, and DAL have been bailed out once in 80 years, and that several years after being in an industry under direct attack by terrorists. Southwest and JetBlue have never been bailed out.

So, no.

Ummm....when were AA, UA & DL bailed out by the US government????

When people make that general statement, they are generally referring to US bankruptcy laws. Mho

stl07 wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

stl07 wrote:

Indirectly, aren't almost every larger legacy airline and airport essentially owned by the same entity since they get bailed out by the government each time they get in trouble

UAL, AA, and DAL have been bailed out once in 80 years, and that several years after being in an industry under direct attack by terrorists. Southwest and JetBlue have never been bailed out.

So, no.

The world does't revolve around the US. I was more referencing other airlines but you proved my point for bringing up only all the legacies in America.

B6 isn't large and WN is not legacy


I was just having a little fun by extending your generalization about the ME3

So, basically, you admit to trolling.

JetBlue has almost as many airplanes as Lufthansa and British Airways (each), and more than Air France. So I guess "big" depends upon your definition.

And while not traditionally identified as a legacy, Southwest has been in business for almost 50 years. Oh, BTW, they aren't a low cost carrier either.

I guess the joke is on me: you trolled me well.

SteelChair wrote:

727LOVER wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

UAL, AA, and DAL have been bailed out once in 80 years, and that several years after being in an industry under direct attack by terrorists. Southwest and JetBlue have never been bailed out.

So, no.

Ummm....when were AA, UA & DL bailed out by the US government????

When people make that general statement, they are generally referring to US bankruptcy laws. Mho

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protects an entity and allows for reorganization with a bank lien/security interest. No government bailout there... more of a creditor bailing the entity out.

Airlines0613 wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

727LOVER wrote:

Ummm....when were AA, UA & DL bailed out by the US government????

When people make that general statement, they are generally referring to US bankruptcy laws. Mho

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protects an entity and allows for reorganization with a bank lien/security interest. No government bailout there...

True, but that doesn't stop many aroud the world from labeling it as a bailout. I've seen it many times

Someone83 wrote:

Lufthansa owns 40% of Terminal 2 in MUC

They also own 8.44% of Fraport and thus they are involved in many dozens of airport businesses globally.

SteelChair wrote:

Airlines0613 wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

When people make that general statement, they are generally referring to US bankruptcy laws. Mho

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protects an entity and allows for reorganization with a bank lien/security interest. No government bailout there...

True, but that doesn't stop many aroud the world from labeling it as a bailout. I've seen it many times

True...

There seems to be a lack of reading comprehension among many posters in this thread. Please re-read (carefully) the title of the thread and if you do not find a reference to Chapter 11, airline reorganization or bankruptcy, then please refrain from posting those subjects here.

Sutton Harbour Holdings who owned Plymouth Airport in the UK also owned Air South West - not to be confused with Southwest Airlines They launched the airline to coincide with British Airways axing their flights from the airport and actually did quite well, until BA came back along with several others competing out of Newquay Airport and really hitting the airlines finances.

It's a bit of a shameless plug but Air South West are featured in an upcoming episode of "Grounded" my series on Youtube which looks at airlines which are no longer around.

I recall Coventry Airport was owned by TUI from 2004 until 2010, they had a lot of problems though this was mainly with the local councils and environmental hippy types trying to prevent a new terminal being built. Eventually TUI got fed up and citing a change in direction following the First Choice merger they pulled the plug and gave up... I am almost certain that Ryanair was causing trouble too, even though they didn't serve the airport at the time...

Phil
FlyingColours

SteelChair wrote:

Airlines0613 wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

When people make that general statement, they are generally referring to US bankruptcy laws. Mho

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protects an entity and allows for reorganization with a bank lien/security interest. No government bailout there...

True, but that doesn't stop many aroud the world from labeling it as a bailout. I've seen it many times

Fine........but don't expect people to not correct you out on it here @ a.net. Far different than when the govt bailed out Chysler in the early 1980s or the recent bailouts of the car companies and the banks. Hell, even after 9/11, I only recall America West & US Airways getting a bailout. United DID apply, but was rejected. So there's no confusion, I am not talking about the grant money that was available to ALL airlines to make up for the aviation system being down for 3 days.

727LOVER wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

Airlines0613 wrote:

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protects an entity and allows for reorganization with a bank lien/security interest. No government bailout there...

True, but that doesn't stop many aroud the world from labeling it as a bailout. I've seen it many times

Fine........but don't expect people to not correct you out on it here @ a.net. Far different than when the govt bailed out Chysler in the early 1980s or the recent bailouts of the car companies and the banks. Hell, even after 9/11, I only recall America West & US Airways getting a bailout. United DID apply, but was rejected. So there's no confusion, I am not talking about the grant money that was available to ALL airlines to make up for the aviation system being down for 3 days.

Aloha, Frontier, ATA, World Airways, and Evergreen also got loan guarantees.

The Wikipedia article seems okay with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Trans ... SB_Results

Or if you want to have more fun you can go to the horses mouth: https://web.archive.org/web/20100606115 ... tsb/press/

In the US, Airline "Ownership" of an airport has always been murky. For instance, Champaign built CMI, but pre-92 bankruptcy TWA leased it and the Terminal for 50 years. To operate at CMI into the terminal, you had to pay TWA for the privilege, and pay TWA for ramp/Counter/Gate service, as well. They had arrangements like this at a few smaller Midwest airports.

FlyingColours wrote:

Sutton Harbour Holdings who owned Plymouth Airport in the UK also owned Air South West [...]

There still is a Swiss business model with some similarities: The airline People`s (IATA: PE) and the airport of St. Gallen/Altenrhein (IATA: ACH) are subsidaries of one single company.

AFAIK, Alaska airlines owns a terminal or two (if not a whole airport) in Alaska. I just spent a little bit of time, but I wasn't able to find a source for this.

Eastern & HUY

I don’t think this one is mentioned yet.

AirSWIFT of Philippines owns two airport - El Nido Airport (ENI) in northern Palawan, and Sicogon Airport, located on its namesake island just off the coast from Iloilo.

Not surprisingly, they are the sole operator to both airport.

London Southend is owned by Stobart. Stobart previously owned 100% StobartAir (main business flying as AerLingus Regional).
Now Stobart owns 30% of Connect Airways, owner of 100% of both StobartAir and FlyBE

Does AA own DFW?

CA owns PEK, MU owns PVG and SHA, and CZ owns CAN.

UA used to own BUR...

USAirKid wrote:

AFAIK, Alaska airlines owns a terminal or two (if not a whole airport) in Alaska. I just spent a little bit of time, but I wasn't able to find a source for this.

IIRC, AS owns 11 terminals within the state. Most are on State lands work rental agreement that include maintenance costs for the runway, but do not provide any form of exclusivity for anything but the actual terminal.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Airport and airline having common majority (ie 50% or more ) ownership, particularly at small airports, rarely ends well. Competitor airlines tend to be wary of engagement with an airport if they expect a rival to receive preferential treatment. The interests of an airline are different and management typically make bad decisions in trying to manage this conflict of interests

It really depends on the desirability of the airport and government oversight/enforcement of competition law. It's hard to argue that REGCO's longtime ownership of YTZ harmed the airport; they successfully turned a commercially irrelevant airport into a very interesting way to get to Toronto, and during their ownership they invested a ton in upgrades that benefit all airport users (the terminal chief among them). OTOH, cancelling AC's lease was plainly anticompetitve and should have prompted swift government action.

Until very recently CSA Czech Airlines and Prague Airport were both owned by the same state-controlled holding company.

LOT Polish Airlines and Warsaw Airport are both fully state-owned. There’s been increasing anti-competitive coordination between the two.

Until very recently CSA Czech Airlines and Prague Airport were both owned by the same state-controlled holding company.

LOT Polish Airlines and Warsaw Airport are both fully state-owned. There’s been increasing anti-competitive coordination between the two.

Airborne Express/DHL owned ILN outright. They turned it over to the Clinton County Port Authority in 2010 when DHL withdrew its US operations, and the airport was renamed from "Airborne Airpark" to "Wilmington Air Park."

Probably the only instance of an airline/air operator owning an entire airport in the U.S., even though it's a freight operator and not a passenger carrier.

I think that MIA started out as Pan American Field, owned by Pan Am, and was subsequently bought by the city.

FlyingColours wrote:

Sutton Harbour Holdings who owned Plymouth Airport in the UK also owned Air South West - not to be confused with Southwest Airlines They launched the airline to coincide with British Airways axing their flights from the airport and actually did quite well, until BA came back along with several others competing out of Newquay Airport and really hitting the airlines finances.

It's a bit of a shameless plug but Air South West are featured in an upcoming episode of "Grounded" my series on Youtube which looks at airlines which are no longer around.

I recall Coventry Airport was owned by TUI from 2004 until 2010, they had a lot of problems though this was mainly with the local councils and environmental hippy types trying to prevent a new terminal being built. Eventually TUI got fed up and citing a change in direction following the First Choice merger they pulled the plug and gave up... I am almost certain that Ryanair was causing trouble too, even though they didn't serve the airport at the time...

Phil
FlyingColours

The NIMBYs were a massive part of what caused the TUI and CVT operation eventually dying, the airport was owned previously buy Coventry Council but for planning fell under Warwick Council and Warwick Council were totally against expansion at the airport this meant that PAX operations were limited to a temporary structure built as an interim terminal..

Other issues were that without large taxi ways any operations meant backtracking on the runway, lack of sufficient infrastructure, the airport didn’t really have the fuel capacity to support multiple daily pax flights being a predominantly GA airport (they did start to build a larger fuel dump however this was never completed and eventually was removed, but also the flight paths for CVT RWY05 and BHX RWY33 basically conflicted with each other which also placed operational restrictions

Because of all of the above it really mean there wasn’t the room or capacity to entice other airlines into the CVT and BHX just dominates the local market..

All in all it was always going to struggle to be a viable operation and the battles with locals and councils just killed it, honestly I don’t really see CVT remaining operational long term, it’s lost too much and eventually the land will be more use swallowed into the ever growing industrial estates growing around it

stl07 wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

Indirectly, aren't the airports and airlines essentially owned by the same entities in the ME3?

Indirectly, aren't almost every larger legacy airline and airport essentially owned by the same entity since they get bailed out by the government each time they get in trouble

What are you talking about? Name one US Airline that OWNS a terminal or airport?. Give your Bias a break will you? Prove it!!

strfyr51 wrote:

stl07 wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

Indirectly, aren't the airports and airlines essentially owned by the same entities in the ME3?

Indirectly, aren't almost every larger legacy airline and airport essentially owned by the same entity since they get bailed out by the government each time they get in trouble

What are you talking about? Name one US Airline that OWNS a terminal or airport?. Give your Bias a break will you? Prove it!!

Huh? Do you not get sarcasm?

JBo wrote:

Airborne Express/DHL owned ILN outright. They turned it over to the Clinton County Port Authority in 2010 when DHL withdrew its US operations, and the airport was renamed from "Airborne Airpark" to "Wilmington Air Park."

Probably the only instance of an airline/air operator owning an entire airport in the U.S., even though it's a freight operator and not a passenger carrier.

ILN was a converted AFB, Airborne made the investment to convert it to a sorting Facility. United was once offered the old Chanute AFB in southern Illinois as a maintenance center then chose Indianapolis. opened it Badly and Ran it even Worse with only "College Degreed Management". The place was a JOKE!

HU owns SYX in Sanya, China

Aisak wrote:

London Southend is owned by Stobart. Stobart previously owned 100% StobartAir (main business flying as AerLingus Regional).
Now Stobart owns 30% of Connect Airways, owner of 100% of both StobartAir and FlyBE

Stobart, also own an run Carlisle Airport (EGNC/CAX)

Whilst Bek Air (Z9/BEK) own the majority shares in Uralsk Airport (UARR/URA)

I think laws in the US would prohibit this. It's similar to movie production companies owning their own movie theaters. I don't know how it goes for the rest of the world however.

rj1385 wrote:

I believe that jetBlue, British Airways and American all own their respective terminals at JFK and rent the ground under them from the Port Authority. Terminal 1 also is owned by 4 airlines as a group.

The original post deals with owning, or holding a master lease on, the actual aerodrome (runways aside). Not already mentioned though: Stobart, in addition to owning SEN and CAX, also is still a minority shareholder in MME (as well as its operator; it formerly owned MME completely).

As for HU, or rather its parent company HNA, airports owned or majority owned are: YIH, NZH, WEF, YKH, and AQG, in addition to SYX.

JHM was originally built and owned by HA.

77H

In USSR, old Aeroflot was in reality an amalgamation of regional "unified aviation enterprises", each of them owning airfields and aircraft. After USSR collapsed, each of these regional companies becoming a "Babyflot". Anti-trust agencies then showed up, demanding breakup of flying from airports. The process is mainly complete, with exceptions still being found here and there.