1804 Economic impact assessment of the new ICAO standard for contaminated runways. A case study of four Norwegian airports.

This is a summary of a case study of four Norwegian airports that are likely to be exposed to the impacts of ICAO State letter AN 4/1.2.26-16/19 regulations of minimum friction on contaminated runways, in terms of reduced regularity. The report assesses the economic effects for passengers and operators, in terms of additional costs. The new ICAO standard is suggested to maintain the existing high level of safety within aviation. This study does not discuss any economic benefits from imposing the new standard.   

The study assesses five scenarios: Scenario P1 and P2 assess an increase in airfares of 20 % and 50% respectively and the use of smaller aircraft to maintain regularity on today’s level. Scenario P3 deals with a winter (November–March) closure of the airports and transfer of traffic to nearest airport, whereas scenario P4 and U1 deal with planned or unforeseen transfers of affected flights to the nearest airport, respectively. 

The economic costs turn out to be significant, particularly in cases where reduced regularity happens without notice and where there are long travel distances to the nearest alternative airport. Unforeseen cancellations or transfers to the nearest relevant airport give the highest economic costs per passenger, spanning from NOK 750 to NOK 5000 per return flight, depending on the airport and destination in question. 

If scenario U1 is generalized to comprise all affected flights (around 500 landings in the regional and around 3,800 landings in the local airport network during an average winter season), we get an estimate of NOK 400-450 million per year for the passenger costs only. This aggregated estimate may be on the higher side due to the fact that we have not been able to isolate the landings where the flight is on time, but with a reduced number of passengers.