AASL states that the ATRS conducts this research annually as part of their “Global Airport Performance Benchmarking Project” and publishes its findings. The report also describes the methodology employed in the analysis of the data gathered. The latest report is based on data collected up to year 2012.
The research focuses on 3 aspects of airport performance, namely:
• Productivity and Operating/Managing Efficiency
• Unit Cost Competitiveness
• Airport User Charges
The report also mentions the research resource constraints encountered by ATRS and specifically mentions that it does not consider “service quality differentials across airports”.
For the 2014 research, a sample of 200 airports across the world has been selected and this includes 37 airports in the Asian region.
Airport productivity is assessed by comparing the outputs such as aircraft movements, passenger movements, cargo throughput and the non-aeronautical revenue against the inputs such as labour, other non-capital inputs and resources such as runways, terminal size, number of boarding gates etc. A parameter called the “Variable Factor Productivity (VFP)” is computed for each airport and the definition of this parameter is particular to ATRS.
Based on the value of the VFP computed for the 37 Asian airports considered for the research, the Bandaranaike International Airport stands at 25. This is ahead of the ranks of airports of New Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai of India, Haneda of Japan, Manila of Philippines,and Tai Pei of Taiwan.
Based on ‘cost competitiveness’ the Bandaranaike International Airport stands at 7 among the 37 Asian airports considered. This is ahead of the ranks of the airports of Gimpo and Incheon of Korea, Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok, Changi, and Narita of Tokyo.
AASL in their press release states that the above contents of the ATRS report is highlighted for the consideration and independent review of all airport users in view of this report been partially quoted, misquoted, quoted out of context and misinterpreted in the news items of certain media and in certain web sites in the past few days.
AASL
AASL further adds that it is also pertinent to mention that the Bandaranaike International Airport is presently operating over capacity and in fact in year 2013 it handled passenger movements 25% in excess of its capacity while maintaining the stipulated service standards and without any degradation of its service performance indicators. These standards were maintained even during the period Sri Lanka hosted the CHOGM 2013 when a record number of VVIP movements were handled within 48 hours amidst the routine operations.
AASL emphasises that analysis of airport operations and ranking is performed by several other international organizations as well. In the Air Travel Ratings and Review of 2014, SKYTRAX ranked BIA as 4th among the best airports in Central Asia. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) ranked Sri Lanka as 5th in the Asia Pacific Region in respect of Air Navigational Safety Implementation and among the 17 states in the region which are above world average. (KH)
