Study: SFO is 'Huge Economic Engine' for Bay Area

Written by SFO Spokesman Doug Yakel

The San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has released a series of new financial results, including a new economic impact study, fiscal year 2012-2013 performance, and passenger traffic figures for July 2013.

Economic Impact Study

SFO conducted a study of the Airport’s economic impact in 2012, which included the Airport’s financial and employment contributions to the nine counties in the Bay Area region.  Highlights of the study included the following:

• In 2012, SFO directly accounted for $5.4 billion in business activity, supporting 33,580 jobs at the airport.
• Operations at SFO in 2012 generated a total of $2.5 billion in state and local tax revenues
• Off-site business activities directly dependent on Airport services raised the Airport’s economic contribution to the whole Bay Area to $31.2 billion in business sales, with 153,000 jobs.

“The results of the study demonstrate that SFO is a huge economic engine for our region,” said Airport Director John L. Martin.  “We are proud to make such a positive contribution in our local communities.”

For more details on the result of the 2012 economic impact study, please visit:http://bit.ly/18JkShx

Fiscal Year 2012/2013 Results

SFO also released the results for the 2012/2013 fiscal year, which were highlighted by a new record of 44.7 million passengers traveling through SFO during the period.  This figure, which includes enplanements, deplanements, and in-transit passengers, represents an increase of 3.9% compared to the previous fiscal year.

Domestic growth was driven by increased service from United Airlines and Virgin America.  As the largest two carriers at SFO, United and Virgin accounted for 86% of domestic traffic growth during the fiscal year.

International traffic growth occurred primarily in the markets of Asia, Europe, and Latin America.  The introduction of two new airlines in April 2013, SAS to Copenhagen and China Eastern to Shanghai and Wuhan, supported this growth, along with new service from United Airlines to Paris.

SFO’s market share among the three airports in the Bay Area remained stable at 70.8% during the fiscal year.

Key accomplishments in fiscal year 2012/2013

SFO made important progress in a variety of objectives over the past year, with highlights including:

• July 2012 – groundbreaking of construction for new state-of-the-art Air Traffic Control Tower
• August 2012 – SFO opens a Marine Emergency Response Facility
• May 2013 – SFO announces new 10-year Capital Improvement Plan, a $4.1B facility improvement program expected to create 36,000 new jobs

Awards received by SFO in fiscal year 2012/2013

SFO was pleased to be recognized for its efforts during the past year, as evidenced by the following:

• September 2012 – Travel Weekly Gold Magellan, “Eco-Friendly ‘Green’ Airport”
• March 2013 – Airport Revenue News “Airport With the Best Overall Concession Program”
• June 2013 – Travel + Leisure “Best Single Social Media Promotion by a U.S. Airport”

New service launched at SFO in fiscal year 2012/2013

• August 2012 – Raleigh-Durham (RDU) via United Airlines, Reagan National (DCA) via Virgin America
• April 2013 – Copenhagen, Denmark via Scandinavian Airlines (SAS)
• April 2013 – Shanghai & Wuhan, China via China Eastern Airlines

July 2013 traffic figures

SFO also reported preliminary result of July 2013 passenger traffic.  Compared to July 2012, SFO experienced a 3.2% decline in domestic enplanements, directly related to the flight cancellations which followed the Asiana Flight 214 accident on July 6, 2013.  This event led to a weeklong closure of one of SFO’s four runways, causing delays and the cancellation of over 850 flights.  In spite of these unforeseen disruptions, international enplanements continued to show modest growth, with a 2.1% increase compared to July 2012.

For more detailed passenger traffic statistics, please visit: http://bit.ly/1e9xy8k