A long haul

There's no great trick to increasing the revenue at an airport.

If you're Reno Tahoe International Airport Executive Director Krys Bart, you simply renegotiate contracts with concessionaries ranging from restaurants to rental-car outfits, convincing them to believe in the future rather than the present they can see outside their doors.

You figure out how to raise parking rates in a way that won't hit the local folks who are your political base.

You convince more airlines to bring more flights through the airport, creating more consumers who buy more stuff from the concessionaires.

And just to make sure it all works together, you undertake a facelift of the facility, get your staff recommitted to customer service and strengthen your ties with the community.

Oh yes, you also do it after a major airline based at your airport Reno Air is sold and disappears into the sunset.

And you do it as the airline business craters after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bart, honored a few days ago as "Airport Director of the Year" by Airport Revenue Magazine, has posted some big numbers since her arrival at Reno-Tahoe International in 1998.

Parking and ground transportation revenues are up 67 percent. Food and beverage revenues are up 31 percent. Revenues from advertising on airport walls is up 15 percent. Non-airline revenues are up 33 percent.

It's been a long haul.

"When I arrived, the airport was struggling," Bart says. "The community didn't embrace the airport for the jewel that it is."

Her work to spruce up the jewel and boost revenue at the same time took numerous paths, some of them not immediately obvious:

* Labor contracts were renegotiated to put the focus on workers' performance, and a bonus plan that even Bart describes as "very complicated" gave managers a direct stake in the airport's financial performance. The upshot: Paychecks and performance became linked.

* Unhappy with the appearance of the airport "When I got here, everything was neon and gaming" Bart got personally involved in sprucing up the place, emphasizing the region's outdoors attractions. A ski sculpture was moved to a central location. Pillars covered with stone provided a Tahoe flavor. New carpet featured leaves from the four seasons a motif inspired by a jacket that Bart wore to a meeting with the designers. The upshot: Better ambiance helps sell passengers on use of Reno-Tahoe International instead of competing airports.

* One after another, contracts were renegotiated with concessionaires. The airport convinces major concessionaires to make major investments $5 million in one case in upgrading facilities. Bart's pitch: If you build it, they will come. Upshot: They do.

* Parking revenues are low, but no one wants to touch the issue in a town where most everyone parks for free all the time. The answer: Boost rates for business travelers the folks who leave a car for two or three days but give locals a break on quick in-and-outs to pick up a travelers. The upshot: Revenues go up with minimal squawking.

Once all the revenue increases are added up, Bart says, "We're right on target. In some ways, we have exceeded the targets that we have set."

At the same time, Bart's management team has tightened control of costs. Budgets are zero-based these days, and everybody justifies everything every year.

A key philosophical decision, Bart says, has been a desire by the airport's board and management to keep a tight rein on the landing fees that are charged airlines. If Reno-Tahoe International is a low-cost airport, the thinking goes, airlines will be more likely to boost service.

That will pay off as more airline service announcements are just around the corner, Bart says. At the same time, the airport continues to talk with potential new concessionaires.

But Bart says the airport management isn't focused just on the next airline deal or the next store opening.

"My horizon isn't six months," she says. "My horizon is 10, 15 or 20 years."