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Tampa International Airport makes record $197.2 million in revenue in fiscal 2014

 
Published Nov. 6, 2014

TAMPA — It was a very good fiscal year for Tampa International Airport's finances.

TIA reported a record $197.2 million in operating revenue in fiscal year 2014, which ended in September. That's an increase of 7 percent, or nearly $13 million more than last year, when the airport set the old record of $184.3 million in revenue.

The key, said airport CEO Joe Lopano, is that those passing through TIA are spending more money there.

"We're providing more and better food, beverage and retail options," Lopano said. "We're seeing a much higher spend per passenger than in the past."

The airport made $11.37 per passenger in 2014. That's an increase of nearly 5 percent, or 52 cents, from the $10.85 per passenger that TIA made in 2013.

TIA's ability to leverage more revenue per individual passenger has been especially fortuitous because it's still seeing slow growth in total passengers.

The airport served 17.3 million passengers in 2014, which was a 2.4 percent increase from the 16.9 million who came through TIA the previous fiscal year. It was the fourth straight year of passenger growth for TIA, and the first time it has hit 17 million since 2009.

But 2014 was still 2 million passengers shy of the airport's all-time record of 19.3 million in 2007. That record was set in a much different economic climate for the country and the airline industry, however. For TIA to get back to 19 million passengers, Lopano said, depends on a number of factors the airport doesn't control.

"The more people who have good-paying jobs," he said, "the more seats you'll see filled in the market."

Airlines have also become more conservative in adding new routes, Lopano added: "They're not as adventurous as they were in the past. They're very careful in how they allocate capacity."

But TIA has seen growth in its domestic market this year, adding new service to Hartford and Minneapolis and increasing its flights to Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles. The airport's biggest domestic news this year was the addition of a nonstop to Seattle, its first route to the Pacific Northwest.

TIA's biggest growth has been in international flights: Copa Airlines started flying direct to Latin America in December 2013, Edelweiss Air added a second weekly flight to Switzerland and the Cuban market added a flight to Santa Clara, Cuba. The airport had almost 600,000 international passengers in 2014, a jump of 14 percent from 2013.

Contact Jamal Thalji at thalji@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3404. Follow @jthalji.