In 2020, airport economic development and the industry’s basic business model were severely challenged by the pandemic. Airports followed the historic downturn with a consistent recovery, overcoming difficulties like fuel price increases, personnel shortages (pilots, crews, and support staff), and a demand for travel that sometimes outpaced flight supply. Not to mention that much of the world continues to experience pandemic-related reduced flight schedules as well as a general recession, lockdowns in China, and a war in Ukraine.

To get a firsthand view into how airports were able to survive the downturn, rebound, and move forward, we spoke with Phillip Washington, CEO of Denver International Airport, which currently ranks third in the world in enplaned passengers.

Denver International Airport had a quicker recovery than many other airports because it’s less reliant on international and leisure travelers, Washington told us. The airport experienced declines in surplus, but airline revenues were roughly the same.

Interestingly, recovery was not the only objective for Denver. Washington and his team created a strategic plan called “Vision 100” that set targets for handling 100 million enplaned passengers in five to eight years (the airport was designed for 50 million). Government funding in the hundreds of millions of dollars is part of the plan, but there’s more to it. The plan also aims to:

• Empower people. Encourage internal employees and vendors of all sizes to be innovative. To this end, the airport has established a Center of Equity and Excellence in Aviation (CEEA) that aims to tackle the workforce issues facing all transportation sectors and create a starting point for innovation. CEEA is focused on three key areas: a business development training academy, career pathways, and a research and innovation lab.

• Improve capital program management. Grow the infrastructure by being efficient and proper stewards of governmental grants allocated to the airport while interacting with the agencies within the City and County of Denver.

• Improve asset management. Ensure that all assets are maintained to achieve their economic lifespan, adhere to preventive maintenance schedules, and ensure safety for employees and passengers alike. Within this pillar, there is a major component of enhancing the customer experience and another aimed at greenhouse emissions mitigation.

• Expand global connections. The airport has formed a connection with Ethiopia that coincides with the US having the largest diaspora community of Ethiopians in the world (approximately 500,000). Growth in air cargo and domestic flights are also part of this pillar.

Washington told us he wants to examine how airports can identify technology trends and look for applications that can be quickly adopted by airport staff to propel them, as a team, to become a leading authority. One potential area is using predictive analytics, especially in the third pillar (asset management), where early warnings can mitigate or eliminate reactive maintenance. Decreasing outages of all kinds is a clear goal of any customer-facing enterprise, airports among them.

[For more from the author on this topic, see: “What Public Sector Entities Can Learn from Airport Innovation During the Pandemic.”]