York Aviation come in for a lot of flak. I’ve started a list of the explicit criticisms that Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) make in the first few pages of their methodology, assumptions and conclusions… see how many more you can find.
York Aviation’s analysis is entirely based on a discredited Master Plan:
[p4] The basis of the analysis provided by York Aviation is the passenger and freight forecasts contained within MIA’s Master Plan published in November 2009. We would note that despite the forecasts only being two years old, the airport is not achieving the level of forecast passenger growth
Inaccurate assumption:
[p4] … no adjustment has been made to the 2018 figure to take into account the downturn seen during 2009 onwards. In our opinion it is highly likely that the 2018 planning assumption used is significantly overstated.
Reaching the wrong conclusions:
[p5] We would partially disagree with the bullets provided at 2.14 [of the York Report] that suggest the resultant effects of not having based units would be; fewer destinations, less likelihood of key European city links and fewer overall passengers.
Hidden assumption:
[p5] Without seeing the underlying analysis used by York Aviation to create Table 2.2 it is difficult for us to accurately assess…
Poor grasp of geography:
[p5] … we would disagree with York’s contention that “It is for the relocation of these services that MIA is ideally geographically located”.
Arbitrary assumption:
[p5] … there is no rationale provided as to why 23.00 has been used as a departure time.
Hidden assumption:
[p6] York Aviation have not provided any of their calculations used to estimate the annual freight loss of 40%... we would need to see the calculations and assumptions used in getting to 40% before this figure could be validated.
Next installment: The Planning Mess