The MAC, a public body that owns and operates the airport, decided unanimously to remove funding for the expansion program from the 2006 and 2007 capital budgets.
As a result, construction on the Humphrey terminal would begin no sooner than 2008, with the first new gates ready in 2010.
The main impetus for the decision came from flight reductions by bankrupt Northwest Airlines.
Takeoffs and landings at the airport were down 1.6 percent in 2005 from a record 541,092 in 2004. Aircraft operations were down 11.2 percent in the first two months of 2006, and the MAC expects flights by major airlines to be down a combined 10 to 14 percent this year, with regional airline flights off 3 to 5 percent.
While takeoffs and landings were down last year, the number of passengers using the airport went up 2.4 percent, to a record 37.6 million, as airlines filled more seats on fewer flights. The trends in the number of takeoffs and landings and the number of passengers are expected to track more closely this year. The number of passengers using the airport was down 7.4 percent in the first two months of the year.
The first phase of the 15-year, nearly $1 billion airport-expansion plan originally called for 12 gates to be added to the Humphrey terminal by summer 2007, bringing the total there to 22. Last fall, the MAC pushed the completion date back a year because of Northwest's decision to pare its schedule.
The rest of the expansion plan calls for moving all non-Northwest-affiliated airlines from their 11 gates at the main Lindbergh terminal to Humphrey. Northwest would get the vacated Lindbergh gates, and another 36 gates eventually would be added to bring the Lindbergh total to 153.
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Recently Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport added another runway to easy traffic congestion. After NWA filed for bankruptcy protection the need for the extra runway has subsided, however traffic at MSP is up in regards to passenger traffic. A trend that is evident across the nation as the number of flights are reduced but planes are fuller.
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