Airlines call for clamp-down on airport charges

Date: 23/09/1999

By Renée Cordes

EUROPEAN airlines are calling on Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio to revive a controversial plan to clamp down on airports which charge inflated landing and take-off fees.

British Airways, Deutsche Lufthansa and others are urging the European Commission to act quickly to stop what they claim are monopolistic practices by airports across the EU.

They want the new Commission to resurrect proposals buried by Union governments last year which would require airports to tie their charges to real costs and provide details of how their fees are calculated.

But De Palacio's aides say that while airport fees are "of interest" to the new Commissioner, they are not an immediate priority.

Europe's airlines have repeatedly complained that they are overcharged by airports and they are not always able to recover the costs from passengers unwilling to pay higher ticket prices.

Several view the advent of a new Commission as a chance to thrust the issue back into the spotlight. "Airport charges and air traffic control charges are two of the worst examples where prices continue to rise," Robert Ayling, chief executive of British Airways, told European Voice this week.

Ayling, who was in Brussels for talks with De Palacio just a few days into her term of office, added: "I am going to encourage the Commissioners, particularly Ms De Palacio, to spend a considerable part of their energy ensuring that the monopoly pricing structure of airports and air traffic control systems is radically changed."

A recent study by the EU's air traffic control agency Eurocontrol found that airport charges rose by 35% in Greece, 29% in Portugal, 20% in the Netherlands and 19% in the UK in just four years. A separate study by the Association of European Airlines revealed that airport charges accounted for around 25% of airlines' overall costs and that handling charges were 70% higher than in the US.

The Commission has opened investigations into airport charging structures in all 15 member states. In February, it ordered Portugal and Finland to revise their landing charges, which discriminated against foreign carriers, or face fines. Competition officials said discounts of 50% and 60% for domestic flights at Portuguese and Finnish airports respectively had no "objective justification".

The Commission's proposals first ran into trouble when Sweden and Spain objected to clauses which would have stopped funds generated by charges levied at their main airports being used to subsidise outlying regional terminals.

The international airport lobby group, Airports Council International, rejected the renewed criticism from the airlines, insisting that airport charges were lagging well behind the rate of inflation in many member states.

"In most airports, charges have not gone up in ten to 15 years," said Yevgeny Pogorelov, a spokesman for the organisation's European branch. "It is an accepted fact that there is very widespread competition between airports in their roles as international hubs."

European airlines are calling on Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio to revive a controversial plan to clamp down on airports which charge inflated landing and take-off fees.