Standard & Poor’s Assigns ‘A’ Rating to $973 Million of Airport Special Obligation Bonds for Kansas City International Airport

Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings has assigned its ‘A’ rating to Kansas City International Airport’s $98.5 million series 2019A airport special obligation bonds and its combined $875 million 2019B-C airport special obligation bonds. The airport’s existing $110 million of senior general airport revenue bonds has been revised to ‘A’ from ‘A+’. The outlook remains stable.

In its report, Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings cites the airport's “strong enterprise risk profile” which “reflects MCI’s strategic location and essential role as the primary airport serving the greater Kansas City metropolitan statistical area”. The rating also reflects the airport’s “strong debt and liabilities capacity, incorporating the full amount of debt that the airport plans to issue to fund its terminal-modernization plan”.

“Given the size of the Build KCI program and the amount of debt to be issued, we expected to have downward pressure on our credit rating,” said Pat Klein, director of aviation. “The ‘A’ rating is better than what was estimated in the initial proposals we received during the RFPQ process for the new terminal project.”

Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings also noted the airport’s strong financial performance based on historical debt coverage, which is expected to decline but remain strong, strong liquidity and available strong debt capacity.

The Kansas City Airport System is an Enterprise Fund Department of the City of Kansas City, Mo., and is supported wholly by airport user charges. No general fund tax fund revenues are used for the administration, promotion, operation, or maintenance of the airports in the system. Visit flykci.com for more information. Find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.