Airport resilience to large-scale events: the case of Pulkovo Airport

URBAN, PLANNING AND TRANSPORT RESEARCH. 2026. Vol. 14. No. 1. Article 2629123.

Boris A. Lodiagin, Varvara V. Nazarova, Rincon C. J.

This study applies an established social cost–benefit analysis (CBA), combined with sequential shock scenarios (COVID-19 and the post-2022 sanctions) and Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis, to evaluate the welfare robustness and recovery dynamics of the Pulkovo Airport PPP renovation project (St. Petersburg, Russia). Using traffic, operations, and cargo forecasts through 2040, we compare a pre-shock baseline with pandemic (2020–2021) and pandemic-plus-sanctions (2022–2023) trajectories. The pandemic reduces the airport’s social NPV by 67%, with a further 18% decline under sanctions; the airport’s B/C ratio falls from 3.91 to 2.07. For the renovation project, social NPV declines by 93% during the pandemic and turns negative under sanctions, with the B/C ratio dropping from 4.11 to 0.91. Sensitivity results show that welfare outcomes become increasingly driven by demand composition, as the revenue share of international operations falls from 38.15% pre-shock to 17.02% post-sanctions. The results indicate strong dependence on traffic composition as international hub and show that the renovation project’s welfare NPV deteriorates markedly and may turn negative under the sanctions regime. The paper’s contribution is to provide a transparent, replicable appraisal protocol for interpreting welfare-CBA outputs through a resilience lens in a context of large-scale disruptions affecting Russian airport PPPs.

Keywords: Cost-benefit analysis, international sanctions, aeronautics, airport renovation project, airport resilience, infrastructure investment project