Down time: predictions of when Miami International Airport will return to pre-9/11 levels continue to stretch further into the future. Where once it was 2004, now it's 2006. So what's an airport to do? Finish a massive capital improvement program so it will be ready when boom times return - Air///State of the Ports 2003

South Florida CEO, March, 2003 by J.P. Faber

Troubled Skies

Even with the growth from expanding cargo capacities, 2003 looks to be a tough year for carriers at MIA. Big problems loom from the outside world.

In cargo, for instance, there are the concerns that added security measures will slow down the speedy flow of goods.

"Air Cargo in particular poses some challenges. One that is not spoken of a lot is security measures," says Jainarain of Greenheart International. "They do--and should--entail a delay in the movement of cargo. It's like a tariff. As security measures increase, we're going to see airports--and especially major ones like MIA--struggling to maintain their volumes."

Similar concerns revolve around the airport's security measures for passengers. As of mid-November 2002, the federal Transportation Security Administration took over the screening processes on all concourses. "We have these big machines sitting in our lobby which impede the flow of traffic and make us more confusing to use, and introduce wait times that are just not acceptable," says Gittens. "Everyone is trying as hard as they can, but the fact that this all got wedged into an ongoing process has just been very difficult." Also of concern is the slowdown in processing foreign nationals by customs and immigration officials, made more cumbersome by new anti-terrorism regulations. "And MIA has more foreign arrivals than any other airport in the country. So it's really creating some congestion at peak times," says Gittens.

Another problem is fuel costs. Richard Haberly, CEO of all-cargo Arrow Air, says that as of January 2003, aviation fuel prices were up 64 percent over the previous year, "and the airlines as a whole have not been able to pass along more than 5 percent of that cost," he says. Arrow, which has a dominant 43-percent share of the Miami-Central America air cargo business, also regularly serves Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It was one of the few cargo carriers that continued flying into Venezuela when aviation fuel become unavailable earlier this year; Haberly had his aircraft refuel in nearby Trinidad.

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Despite the travails, says Haberly, "Arrow Air is doing quite well" and should be profitable in 2003. While he does have some concern that Colombia will suffer from guerilla activities this year, he feels that, one way or another, the uncertainty in Venezuela will clear up and "2003 will definitely be better than 2002."

One little-noticed airport industry that will not do better, says Haberly, is the crew- and pilot-training business. Prior to the 9/11 attacks, Miami was the largest crew-training center in the US. No other city in the US has as many flight simulators as Miami. Airbus alone has more than two dozen, and they are joined by those of Aero Service, Boeing Flight Safety, Atlas and Pan American, among others. Unfortunately for these training schools, after it was discovered that the 9/11 hijackers learned to fly in the US (including in South Florida), the federal government made it much harder to train non-US citizens in flight schools here.