DFW International Airport Concludes Largest Online Auction In Its History With Record Earnings

(DFW INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT – February 6, 2007) – DFW International Airport completed its latest online auction on Friday with a record-setting performance in terms of dollars earned and web-hits generated. The month-long auction produced almost $1.8 million in earnings for the Airport, while producing in excess of 18 million page views on the auction web site, www.renebates.com. 

“We are extremely pleased with the outcome of the online auction,” said Jeff Fegan, CEO of DFW. “The Internet-based method of selling our surplus items has proven to be very popular with buyers, as you can see from our outstanding sales figures. We’re receiving a great return and a lot of positive feedback for making these items available online.” 

The online auction sold more than 2100 lots of merchandise, including surplus vehicles, heavy equipment and a wide range of surplus materials used in the construction of International Terminal D and the Skylink automated people mover system. The auction also included portable buildings, office equipment and a variety of audio-visual items in prime condition. 

“The Airport is always looking for new revenue streams in order to offset the costs that tenant airlines have to bear,” said John Wesley White, vice president of procurement at DFW. “The online auction is a very effective way of allowing DFW to recover costs associated with surplus materials, which in turn allows DFW to be even more competitive in the global airport marketplace.” 

The online auction, DFW’s fifth such auction in the past four years, closed the books as the largest online venture in Airport history. The auction opened for bidding on January 8, and the final lots were still receiving bids hours past Friday afternoon’s final deadline. 

“There was some extremely spirited bidding competition out there in the final days,” said White. “The auctions extended as long as the lots were receiving bids at least every five minutes, and that allowed the Airport to benefit even more from the final bidding.” 

Over the last five days of the auction, the host web site recorded well over three quarters of a million hits on each day. 

The item drawing the auction’s highest price was a portable office building, which fetched a total of $45,100. Surplus vehicles and construction equipment also proved to be very popular with bidders. 

Sales have come from around North Texas, across the country and from bidders in 22 countries, including faraway locales such as Norway, Samoa, Ivory Coast and Pakistan. 

The Airport began online auctions as a pilot program in 2003, with 70 lots of merchandise netting $50,000. Each proceeding auction has set a new record, with the most recent auction in 2006 generating more than $500,000 in sales and over five million hits to the host Web site.