Kevin Foley had a nice birthday present ready for the Des Moines Airport Authority Board when it gathered Nov. 8. The independent authority, which runs Des Moines International Airport, celebrated five years of operation on Nov. 1. Foley gave board members Ed Hansell, Kerty Levy, Jake Christensen, Mark Feldmann and Liz Ward a presentation of airport successes that was, well, frosting on the cake. Highlights:

• Passenger traffic has grown by 4.5 percent or more in all but one of those years and is on pace to jump 6 percent this year, to 2.5 million — about the level where consultants expect the present terminal’s capacity to be tested. (Hence the discussion of building a new terminal over the next decade or so.) The high was in 2012, at 8.7 percent.
• When the authority took over operations from the city government, Des Moines had 16 nonstop flights. Now it has 19. (Note, the previous top destination for people boarding in Des Moines, Las Vegas, lost the crown to Phoenix recently.)
• Car rental revenue jumped 48 percent in five years, to $30.3 million. Parking revenue rose 41 percent, to $11.5 million.
• Des Moines airfares are still lower than Omaha’s on average, though they are higher than Kansas City’s and the national average.
• The airport’s spending per passenger dropped to $8.47 this year from $10.06 when the authority began, and is projected to fall to $8.36 in 2017. Foley said he wants that number under $8, but the airport already has made the biggest cuts in expenses. He still sees ways to reduce costs at least modestly. The cost per enplanement, as it is called, was slightly lower in 2012 before the airport had to assume costs that had been paid by the Iowa Air National Guard before fighter jets left town.
• Cash reserves stood at $20.3 million in 2011. They now stand at $61.3 million.