Officials at Pittsburgh International Airport may defer some capital projects and take other steps to scale back proposed fee increases to airlines.

Bradley D. Penrod, executive director of the Allegheny County Airport Authority, said officials hope to save $2 million to $3 million by dropping the capital projects and "fine tuning" a proposed 2009 budget.

Mr. Penrod did not know yesterday how much the proposed savings would reduce landing fees and other charges to the airlines. He said those calculations won't be known until next week.

"It will have a desired effect, I'll tell you that," he said.

The cost-cutting effort came on the heels of a meeting Thursday with the airlines to discuss the proposed fee increases. Mr. Penrod said the session was "very congenial" but that the airlines "asked us to look harder" at ways to reduce costs.

"The biggest ask, if you will, was please go back and look at everything," he said.

Southwest Airlines and AirTran Airways have complained about the increases, the result of dramatic flight cutbacks by US Airways. The authority is projecting that boardings will drop from 4.75 million this year to 4.1 million next year, less than half of what they were in 2001. Generally speaking, fewer passengers mean higher fees to the airlines.

Under the proposed $88.9 million budget, landing fees would increase about 35 percent to $3.37 per 1,000 pounds; terminal fees, what the airport charges for rent inside the terminal, will go up by about 36 percent to $149.59 per square foot; and ramp fees, the rate charged for outdoor space where aircraft are parked, will nearly triple, increasing to $574.74 per lineal foot from $197.47.

Mr. Penrod said the capital projects that could be deferred include an authority maintenance building and miscellaneous airfield and taxiway work. That could have an impact on fees because the airlines typically contribute up to 25 percent of the cost of improvements as the local share. The money comes out of the fees they pay to the airport.

The authority also is lowering its estimated spending on fuel, given the steep drop in gasoline and diesel prices recently. In the past, the authority also has looked at closing perhaps two of the airport's four concourses but does not currently see that as a viable option.