GE Turns Gateless Airports Into Work With 60% Margins (Update1)
Jim Smith, who oversees the city- owned airport in Austin, Texas, needed help fast. Mexico's no- frills airline, VivaAeroBus, wanted to make Austin its first U.S. destination, and Smith had no free gate space.

To help quickly build and manage a three-gate terminal, Smith in June turned to a company with roots deep in aviation: General Electric Co., which leases more than 1,450 planes to 230 airlines and ranks as the world's biggest maker of jet engines.

``We kind of stumbled into GE,'' says Smith, executive director of the city's Aviation Department. ``They already headquarter some of their freight operations here, and we were familiar with them. GE can move a whole lot quicker than we can as a city, and that's one of the attractions.''

The deal, if given final city council approval, will be welcome business for Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE amid the global boom in air travel and shipping: Returns on owning, building and managing airports can produce profit margins of as much as 60 percent, according to Geneva-based Airports Council International.

Bloomberg