Southwest Florida International Airport proposes to charge the airlines $16.64 for every departing passenger next year, up from $14.03, and the rise is bond coverage on the terminal expansion rather than the cost of running the place

The Lee County Port Authority is proposing to raise the average cost the airlines pay for every passenger who boards at Southwest Florida International Airport to $16.64 in the year beginning October 1, from $14.03 now, while budgeting for 91,311 fewer passengers than the current year's plan.

The figures are in the authority's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026-27 and in the accompanying rates and fees schedule, both published on the authority's own site. Neither has been adopted. The executive director's transmittal letter to the Lee County Board of Port Commissioners is dated September 3, 2026.

What the airlines would pay

The letter's summary of proposed rates and charges, repeated in a Key Statistical Indicators table, sets out four numbers.

The landing fee rises from $4.18 to $4.32 for every thousand pounds of landed weight. The terminal rental rate rises from $218.54 to $287.39 a square foot, an increase of $68.85. The joint use fee, charged on the shared parts of the building, rises from $4.27 to $5.65 for each departing passenger. The baggage handling system fee holds at $1.30.

Taken together those produce the number an airline network planner actually reads: the average cost per enplanement, which the documents put at $14.03 this year and $16.64 next, a rise of $2.61 or 18.61 percent. On a gross basis, before revenue sharing, the rates schedule gives $15.38 and $18.14.

Total signatory passenger airline revenue would go from $79,557,970 to $99,340,260, an increase of 24.87 percent.

The increase is the terminal, not the running of the airport

Operating expenses are close to flat. The rates calculation carries operating costs of $57,571,192 this year and $57,717,600 next, a rise of 0.25 percent, and personnel costs of $55,890,063 and $61,065,760, which the letter attributes to five new full-time positions, a larger employer share of health insurance premiums and a legislated increase in the authority's contribution to the Florida Retirement System.

Debt is what moves. Total debt service in the rates calculation goes from $75,081,813 to $81,443,925. The largest single change is the Series 2026 A-1 bonds, labelled in the schedule as Phase I and Concourse E, which rise from $11,593,538 to $17,310,900, or 49.3 percent.

The terminal rental rate page shows the mechanism directly. On the same basis as the current year, the signatory terminal rental rate would come out at $238.94. A line reading extraordinary coverage requirement, at $10,949,505, appears in the 2027 column and carries no entry for 2026. It lifts the adjusted net requirement from $50,848,453 to $64,577,841, and the required rate at 1.40 coverage becomes $287.73, adjusted on the following line to the published $287.39.

Neither document explains that line in words. Its position in the table, and the debt schedule beside it, are what the increase rests on.

Fewer passengers, and a change in who is counted

The authority is budgeting 11,324,210 total passengers against 11,415,521 in the current adopted budget, a fall of 91,311, or roughly 0.80 percent. The letter notes that the proposed figure is nonetheless above its own fiscal 2026 forecast of 11,215,363. Total landed weight is budgeted to rise 1.80 percent, to 6,387,707 thousand pounds.

Underneath the total, the mix shifts. Signatory enplanements are budgeted to rise from 5,172,806 to 5,477,506, up 5.89 percent, while non-signatory enplanements fall from 574,864 to 225,631. The letter attributes that to Breeze becoming a signatory airline, having previously been a non-signatory one, and says the same change explains why non-signatory revenues fall by about 2 million dollars while signatory revenues rise by nearly 20 million.

Breeze Airways paused its Fort Myers to Albany route for the whole of September earlier this month, blaming fuel costs, and says the flights return in October.

The rest of the budget

The consolidated all funds budget for the Port Authority, which covers Page Field as well as the international airport, totals 1.3 billion dollars, up 1.57 percent or 19.7 million dollars on the current adopted budget.

The airport operating fund goes from $237,057,401 to $275,275,222, an increase of 16.12 percent or $38,217,821. Non-operating expenses account for most of that, rising from $123,596,146 to $156,491,862.

Capital construction is proposed at 590.3 million dollars, a decrease of 118.6 million. The letter names the major projects as terminal expansion phase 1 construction, terminal expansion phase 2 for Concourse E, rehabilitation of runway 6/24, a consolidated maintenance building, and design work on the rental car service facility and parking expansion.

Page Field is proposed at 46.7 million dollars, up 1.0 million, most of it higher fuel inventory cost. The letter records that rental income there falls because a tenant lease in the Page Field North building has expired, and that the ageing building is planned for demolition sometime after 2030, when the last tenant agreement runs out.

The airlines have seen it

Port Authority staff met the carriers on May 12, 2026 and presented a summary of the proposed budget and the rates and fees. The letter states that the airlines were complimentary of management's efforts to maintain a flat operating budget and a cost per enplanement below prior projections.

That is the authority's account of the meeting. No airline has published one.