ACI-NA has retained the services of Western Management Group (WMG) who, since 1972, has been recognized as an independent global leader in the design, development and conduct of salary and compensation surveys for a wide variety of organizations. Click here for additional background information on the types of surveys which they conduct and proprietary information which they safeguard.
Every year, ACI-NA works with Western Management Group to conduct a compensation and benefits survey of our airport members. Thank you to the many airports who submit annual data on their pay and benefits structure to help strengthen our industry’s most important asset: our people.
The ACI-NA Compensation and Benefits Survey was created in response to requests from airport management for a credible, reliable, and legally compliant source of market compensation data. Through the efforts of ACI-NA’s Compensation & Benefits Working Group the inaugural airport industry-specific compensation-and-benefits benchmarking survey was launched in 2008 and published in early 2009. Survey participation has continued to grow each year and has maintained an 85% repeat of participants allowing participants to monitor year-to-year salary growth more accurately.
Our 2026 survey, a record total of 151 airports and authorities (131 U.S. and 20 Canadian) participated, reporting comprehensive compensation data on over 19,110 employees in 138 distinct industry‐specific jobs. Results of the survey, administrated by the Western Management Group, were released in March 2026, with information from calendar year 2025. The 2026 edition is now available for purchase by participants at special ACI-NA member rates. Interested in seeing the breakdown of 2026 survey participants? Check out our U.S. and Canadian overviews.
Even if your airport did not participate in this year’s survey, we are pleased that all ACI-NA airport members are able to access a special section of the survey at no cost specific to industry trends in benefits and pay practices. This section includes 80 benefits and policy topics, like average merit budget and salary structure adjustments. Once you input your own airport’s information, you can create a report that includes data from other airports’ submissions or from the entire database.
To help ensure credibility of the data, ACI-NA does not have access to any of the data included in the survey. All member inquiries about how to access the data should be directed to Ellie Nakhforoush at Western Management Group by phone at 408-571-6378 or by email at ellie@wmgnet.com. Ellie will be able to provide all members with instructions on how to access the benefits and pay section of the survey and how survey participants can access compensation data.
We are already working on our 2027 Compensation and Benefits Survey. We look forward to growing airport participation in this important survey as airports continue their work of developing the workforce of the future. If you are interested in participating in next year’s survey, or have questions, please contact Ellie and reference her contact information above.