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Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport's recent announcement that it plans to deploy ATMs in the airport's secured concourse continues a trend among some of the nation's largest airports that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks forced airport authorities to reconfigure facilities to accommodate longer wait times for departing passengers.
One of the nation's 10 busiest airports, Phoenix Sky Harbor disclosed in Decenber that it is doubling to 24 from 12 the number of ATMs in the airport, Tamie Fisher, the airport's deputy aviation director for business and properties, tells ATM&Debit News.
Ten of the new machines will be installed in the secure concourse for passengers once they clear the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint, says Deborah Ostreicher, Phoenix Sky Harbor's deputy aviation director.
The airport plans to deploy the ATMs in the airport's secured areas, or airside, after it awards a new deployer contract, Fisher says. The airport is scheduled to announce the winner in March. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. currently deploy ATMs at the airport in the non-secured concourse. Sky Harbor decided to deploy ATMs in secure areas after the airport reached an agreement with the Transportation Security Administration to take through security money for the ATMs. Fisher declined to provide details.
The machines' deployers collect surcharge fees from nonbank customers, says Kate Monahan, an analyst with Boston-based Aite Group LLC.
In St. Louis, for example, Lambert-St. Louis Airport collects 50% of all surcharge fees from all four ATMs U.S. Bancorp operates in the airport's secure concourse areas, says Nora O'Donnell, Lambert-St. Louis' properties specialist.
Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp signed a five-year contract in 2004 with the airport, and in 2006, 2007 and 2008 the bank paid the airport $170,667 for a yearly average of $56,889, O'Donnell says.
Mineta San Jose (Calif.) International Airport in December 2008 awarded a seven-year contract to deploy eight ATMs, including an undisclosed number in post-security, to U.S. Bancorp. U.S. Bank's contract will pay the airport $144,000 annually, an increase of $82,000 yearly from the previous contract, says David Vossbrink, spokesperson for Mineta San Jose Airport. U.S. Bank also can raise the surcharge fee to $3 per transaction from the current $2 with airport permission, Vossbrink adds.
Once passengers clear security, they are not concerned with paying ATM surcharge fees, O'Donnell says. "They are relaxed; they are walking to their departure gates, and they feel there are no more obstacles," she says.
Marc T. Henderson, spokesperson for Miami International Airport, which has six ATMs in secure areas, says the machines are "highly utilized with a high volume of transactions."
Passengers are not the only ones who use the machines. Airport employees also are heavy users of airport ATMs, says Vossbrink, of Mineta San Jose.
Although deployment of ATMs in secure airport areas can be lucrative, clearing workers through airport security to repair broken machines and to replenish them with cash is challenging, notes Pauline Armbrust, president and CEO Armbrust Aviation Group, publisher of Airport Revenue News, a biweekly newsletter, and the ARN Fact Book. "Everything is a problem," Armbrust says. "TSA employees have to check all food and beverages. Workers must undergo background checks, and someone already cleared through airport security must escort construction workers to work sites. So the treatment of money is no different."
The incremental revenue airports earn reduces their operating costs, Sean Broderick, spokesperson for the American Association of Airport Executives, tells ATM&Debit News. "Higher revenues in one area, such as in retail, can help keep costs down across the board, often through reimbursement agreements with the airlines," he says.
Installing ATMs in secure airport concourse areas coincides with the opening of more restaurants, cafes and newspaper stands in those areas because passengers have to wait longer for their flights to depart, Broderick says.
Deployment of more services in secure concourse areas is the result of the imposition of tougher passenger-security checks following 9/11, he adds.
"The entire paradigm of airport configuration changed after 9/11. Passengers were told to arrive at the airport two hours early to clear TSA security," Broderick says. "Once passengers cleared security, they had to wait longer for their flights to take off, so airports installed more vendors to serve customers, and ATMs are part of that trend. Before 9/11, individuals arrived at the airport much closer to the time when their flights were scheduled to leave, so the wait time was shorter."
The time passengers spend in airports waiting for their flights to depart increased to an average of 75 minutes after 9/11 from 45 minutes previously, Armbrust says.
Banks and other financial institutions installed ATMs in airports because passengers expect them. "People view ATMs like drinking fountains; they expect to find them everywhere," Vossbrink says.
Although most, if not all, the restaurants in secured areas accept debit and credit cards, a waiting passenger may decide he needs cash to pay for a cab when his flight lands. If all of the ATMs are installed outside the secure concourse, the passenger would have to leave area, withdraw money from an ATM and go back through security. This can be a daunting task for someone who earlier took off his shoes, emptied his pockets, removed his laptop from its carrying case and walked through a security metal detector.
"I would never leave a secure area because I don't know if I could get back in time to catch my flight," Aite Group's Monahan says.
Phoenix Sky Harbor is late to the party when it comes to installing ATMs in the secure concourse areas. Other airports started earlier.
Mineta San Jose International Airport, Lambert-St. Louis Airport Miami International Airport, and San Antonio International Airport and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which operates Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport near Washington,D.C., installed ATMs in what are now deemed secure concourses as early as 15 years ago. But that was years before 9/11 ushered in increased passenger screening, giving new meaning to secure airport areas. ATM
