01
A major airport is a regulated monopoly gateway with a shopping mall attached — two tills, the aeronautical and the commercial, on one captive-traffic site. Pick a real airport below and follow it through the airfield, the business model and a working returns model.
—
Drag the sliders to see what flows through the airport — and which till it earns from.
Every airport earns from two tills. The aeronautical till charges airlines to land, park and process passengers — a near-monopoly, so almost always regulated, and lower-margin. The commercial till — retail, food & beverage, car parking, property and advertising — is largely unregulated and far higher-margin. Lifting commercial income per passenger is the core value-creation lever; the regulatory regime then decides how much of it the owner keeps versus hands back to the airlines.
—
See also the standalone live airport simulation — a generic airport with animated traffic and the same two-till revenue → EBITDA → returns build.