Armed with a new agreement with its airlines that secures long-term development funds alongside a booming city, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is sitting pretty
Within a decade, the sprawling Texan mega-city of Dallas/Fort Worth will have expanded to become the third-largest city in the USA and its airport – Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) – will see passenger numbers rise above Chicago O’Hare’s for the first time, putting it behind only New York and Los Angeles.
The rosy prospects for this city are ample reason to target service to DFW, John Ackerman, Executive Vice President – Global Strategy and Development, told ARGS at Routes. On current traffic trends, the sharp rebound in passenger numbers at DFW will see some 80 million travellers pass through the airport this year, greater than 2019 levels, with over 83 million predicted in 2024.
In fact, DFW has been “fully recovered” since early 2022, said Ackerman. The airport went into the pandemic with a “fortress balance sheet” and a strong cash position, took the decision not to lay off any of its 2,000 staff, slashed costs (“we went ugly early”, he said), and hunkered down.
The strategy has paid off, with home carrier American Airlines, which makes up 85% of DFW’s business, “re-building and doubling down its network around DFW [from summer 2020]”, explained Ackerman. “American made a bet on DFW and that decision has been of tremendous benefit to us.”
As traffic surges at DFW, Ackerman was pleased to report in Istanbul that airline tenants have just signed a new 10-year master lease for use of the airport’s gates and terminals. The deal, which has taken five years to negotiate, was “complex and the hardest one we’ve done”, he explained.
It was tough because the agreement was negotiated in an uncertain market with all parties under financial strain. But the growth prospects of Dallas/Fort Worth were a significant factor in helping “sell” the deal, explained Ackerman.
“It was a multi-year negotiation that gives the airlines, airport and the region the right amount of certainty for the future. It’s a fair deal and we are very proud of it,” he said.
A key part of the new lease sees US$5 billion worth of capital projects pre-approved up to 2030. “We felt it was important for us to get this because we knew we had a lot of expansion to do,” said Ackerman.
The largest is the new Terminal F, which will feature 15 contact gates and seven stands in the first phase. Work will start this year and the terminal will be completed in 2029.
A decade ago, DFW began rehabilitating Terminals A, B and E and now it is the turn of the 1970s-era Terminal C. This “tired” terminal, which is entirely used by American, will not be renovated, however. Instead it will be rebuilt, said Ackerman.
A new world-class terminal with 35 gates will be created, using a modular concept where the gates are constructed off-site and shipped in. The work to develop Terminal C will see gates built in a rolling programme from 2024 over a period of four to five years, allowing the terminal to remain in operation for American during the project.
As DFW brings its terminals up to modern standards, it is also planning $4 billion of infrastructure upgrades, such as runway resurfacing and new roads, to update a facility that primarily dates back to the 1970s.
Network development
While American is its most important partner and DFW is very “focused on their success”, there is a “tremendous demand for our airport” from elsewhere too, said Ackerman.
In terms of destinations not served today from DFW, a direct service to India is top of the agenda. The city has the second-largest Indian-born population in the USA after New York, he noted.
DFW has seen a raft of European connections in the past five years, but there is “still significant room to grow the breadth and depth of our European network”, said Ackerman, adding: “The challenge is that we need longer-range aircraft.”
As the largest oneworld Alliance hub in the world there have been concerns about whether carriers from other alliances can succeed at DFW. However, Turkish Airlines from the Star Alliance, and Air France from SkyTeam, have begun service to DFW and done well, he said.
