Impact of Passenger Characteristics on the Degree of Importance of Airport Components and Their Attributes

This paper applies the AHP - Analytical Hierarchy Process to determine the impact of passenger characteristics on the importance that users assign to the various components of an airport passenger terminal (APT) and their attributes. A survey of departing passengers was employed to obtain the user perceptions at Sao Paulo / Guarulhos International Airport, the biggest airport in South America. The results indicate that the most important components of an APT for departing passengers are the check-in counter and the departure lounge. The paper further provides a degree of importance for components and their characteristics (processing time, courtesy, etc), as a function of two important passenger characteristics: purpose of trip (business, leisure, etc) and destination (domestic vs. international). The results are useful for airport planners and managers in order to assist them during the resource allocation planning, since they could provide more resources (funds, employees, etc) to components that are more important for passengers.