President Trump presses for large scale Dulles Airport expansion – the case for a lease or P3s
📌 概要
There are those in the United States, led by the right-leaning Reason Foundation, who consistently argue for the privatisation of US airports either by lease, or public-private partnerships, to build
⚡ 关键要点
- ▸There are those in the United States, led by the right-leani
- ▸Equally there are those, most often found in municipal (city
- ▸The non-privatisers overall have won the argument, which beg
There are those in the United States, led by the right-leaning Reason Foundation, who consistently argue for the privatisation of US airports either by lease, or public-private partnerships, to build specific infrastructure like terminals. (Both are referred to as P3s in the US).
Equally there are those, most often found in municipal (city, county, state) office that prefer the status quo, and the inherent certainty of traditional avenues of financing such as tax exempt airport bonds, passenger facility charges, airline terminal leasing charges and so on.
The non-privatisers overall have won the argument, which began with the '1996 Airport Pilot Privatisation Programme', and which today sees only one major airport fully privatised (and that in an overseas US Territory - Puerto Rico).
Now the matter has been thrust back into the spotlight with the desire of the nation's incumbent president to modernise and grow Washington Dulles Airport on a grand and costly scale, with over USD20 billion of investment. Previously, in his first term, President Trump had expressed the wish that both the Dulles and Reagan airports be privatised.
This time he has not expressed a preference for Dulles to be privatised by lease. That hasn't happened to a major US airport for over 13 years (Puerto Rico), and the last attempt to do so (St Louis Lambert Airport) fell flat in 2019 - despite huge global interest in it.
Instead, his expensive overhaul plan does incorporate P3s for specific development aspects.
This report looks at the argument for and against infrastructure-specific P3s, both at Dulles and generally, while counselling that full lease privatisation there may still make more sense.