Airports should be great businesses. They face inexorably growing demand, are not dogged by competitors in the way that other businesses are, and operate in a controlled environment. They sound like the perfect safe haven for investment fund managers.

But things are not that simple for airport operators in mature democracies - especially crowded ones like the European states - which want to expand their businesses to meet travel demand. Even in the USA, with apparently plenty of real estate available for expansion, airport managers hoping to develop their businesses face two powerful obstacles: the environmental lobby and the NIMBY (not in my back yard) syndrome. Everybody wants an airport conveniently located nearby, but not too near, and wants more runway capacity if that is what it takes to reduce delays, but wants it built somewhere else.

The NIMBY syndrome was recognised long ago by an aviation industry trying to keep a sense of humour in the face of the realities of operating in (and for) a society that wants things both ways. But the NIMBY's anatomy, according to weary industry watchers, consists of eleven sub-components, each with its own acronym. These range from the politically motivated NIMEY (not in my election year) through the legal tactician's NUID (negotiate until it dies), to the civic/environmentalist's ultimate BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything).

But a reversal of the accepted meaning of NIMBY - that nothing should be built near an airport - ought to be a weapon in the airport manager's portfolio, according to a liberal interpretation of the Internat-ional Civil Aviation Organisation's October 2001 ruling on measures to control the impact of aircraft noise on communities. ICAO's plan for "land use management" (LUM - see side panel) is one of the central tenets in the set of principles officially called "the balanced approach to aircraft noise reduction" (BAANR). These principles were drawn up ostensibly to balance environmental measures and noise sanctions intended to benefit communities near airports against the airlines' ability to continue providing profitable air services. Date: May 14, 2002