Regardless of what the fare is, the airport only receives an agreed amount per passenger. This can be, with Ryan Air/Jet2/EasyJet/Wizz in the region of £1 to £5 per passenger. Gone are the days when airlines paid landing fees based on the maximum all up weight of the aircraft. So if, for e.g FR are paying the airport £3 per passenger carried, it is that multiplied by how many there are on the flight. If there is 1 passenger the airport gets £3 if its 189 they get £567. But, when FR negotiate these prices before they start a flight, they also take into consideration with the airport, how many passengers the airline has to put through the terminal. E.G, they may have agreed with the airport that the route will put 25,000 pax through in a year. If they do not achieve this figure then the airport can and will impose a penalty on them for not fulfilling their part of the deal, and it probably will be a financial penalty. Now, it is not up to the airline what their passengers do in the terminal be they extravagent holiday makers , business persons or farm labourers from eastern Europe, but the actual airport itself must create a commercial environment with outlets to entice the money out of these passengers, ie shops, bars, restaurants, car parks, slot machines, fast track boarding, executive lounges etc. The airport can take up to 15% of all profits from sales in outlets, let alone they are charging them inflated rents for being there, as everyone has experienced the £8 coffee and sandwich rip off I'm sure. Airports look to expect all passengers to spend at least £20 per person in shops, but of course they can not make people do this.
So, if it looks like the airline after 12 months or whatever time period has been agreed is falling short of its projected target with the airport, you will probably see a period of extended cheap flight offers down to a few pounds/euros up for grabs. Some of you may remember a story from Norwich airport a few years ago, when FlyBe had a base there. They were falling short of their target loads for the year, and were actively asking staff, airport workers, friends and relatives to go to either Belfast or Dublin, I forget which, for free, just so they hit their target with the airport and they did'nt get fined thousands of pounds for breaking their contract.
I hope this makes things a bit clearer on how lo cost airlines and airports now make their money. The figures I used are not known and never quoted outside board rooms, so the figures that I used are just a guess, but from being involved in the industry, I can tell you that they are that low, and if they don't generally get below £10 per passenger the airline will go elsewhere. When locos were in their infancy starting out at Luton and Stansted in the early 90s, figures of 50p per passenger were the norm. Also, the airline not only pays the airport a paltry amount, but negotiates down their handling fees with the Handling Agent, i.e Servisair, to the point that they barely make money, hence you have the complaints that "there's never enough staff on duty to look after our flight" or there was only two staff on to de-ice 4 aircraft. All down to the cut throat deals the locos expect from airports. Most people now pay for baggage and check in fees which is added, as the airline has negotiated these fees away, only adding them if the passenger uses that option. There's only two things they do not seem to control and that is what they pay for fuel, and the navigation charges they incur for flying the worlds airways.
