AIRPORT OPERATIONS 



Commercial Airports 



To establish the level of operations among the airports within the 10 

 county region, standard FAA workload measures were employed. The basic meas- 

 ure for commercial airports is the number of enplaning passengers (persons 

 boarding commercial flights) per year. Past and projected volumes of passen- 

 ger enplanements for the three commercial airports are given in Table 7. 



Commercial airline forecasts, given in this section, were made for the 

 Florida Department of Transportation (1975) as part of the Florida Aviation 

 System Plan. The forecasting employed were (1) correlation analysis (popula- 

 tion history with enplanement history); (2) share of the market (regional en- 

 planement history with U.S. enplanement history; and (3) linear ft (regional 

 enplanements' with regional population history). The variables used were 

 population, payroll, and tourist accommodations. These forecasts predict that 

 Tampa will remain the dominant airport in the region, but the Lee County-Page 

 Field Airport will grow the fastest in 1980-90. 



General Aviation Airports 



The basic operations measure for general aviation facilities is the 

 number of takeoffs and landings (aircraft operations) per year. Historical 

 and predicted annual aircraft operations for these airports in Southwest Flor- 

 ida are shown in Table 8. Future operation levels are taken from Federal 

 Aviation Administration (FAA) Aviation Forecasts (U.S. Department of Transpor- 

 tation 1979). The procedure used was to apply the FAA forecasted growth per- 

 centage (42%) for general aviation aircraft operations from 1979 to 1991 for 

 Southwest Florida as a whole, and then allocate this growth based on each air- 

 port's market share of the operations reported in 1980. 



Table 7. Number of past (1970 and 1979) and projected (1980, 1985, and 1990) 

 air carrier enplanements^ for three major airports in Southwest Florida 

 (Florida Department of Transportation 1975). 



Airport 1970 1974 1980 1985 1990 



Tampa 



International 1,520,400 2,424,300 3,972,900 5,586,600 8,013,000 



Lee County- 

 Page Field -- 147,400 350,500 631,600 992,200 



Sarasota- 



Bradenton 146,400 275,400 434,600 784,500 1,155,100 



Number of passengers boarding commercial flights. 



37 



