European Parliament vote on airport charges reinforces monopolistic behaviour by airports - IACA

Responding to today’s vote of the European Parliament on Airport Charges, IACA is extremely disappointed that an opportunity to address the unbalanced relationship between the fully deregulated airline sector and their monopolistic service provider (airports) has been missed.

Airport users need a genuine economic Regulation on airport charges to rebalance the relationship between airports and airlines.  In the absence of such an adequate instrument, IACA believes that it would be detrimental to airlines to grant a blank cheque to airports in respect to the choice of Single/Dual Till business model, as voted for today.

As airports are increasingly developing non-core activities, airlines should be able to benefit from these activities (generated by their passengers) through lower aeronautical charges (single till ^*).

Most worrying, however, is the decision by the Parliament to allow pre-financing of large airport infrastructure projects through increased airport charges which can be imposed on airline carriers.

Sylviane Lust, Director General of the International Air Carrier Association (IACA) commented:

"The vote today only serves to reinforce the monopolistic behaviour of airports going forward and gives a free reign to airports to set charges and pre-finance investments. It is economic nonsense to allow airports to pre-finance infrastructure projects through airport charges.  This allows airports to start building and shift the risk of investment entirely onto airlines."

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^*  An airport's 'single till' charging mechanism permits airports to maximise generated profits from retail and commercial activities, while airport users (airlines) may benefit from lowered airport charges

The International Air Carrier Association (IACA) represents 38 airlines serving the leisure industry. IACA members operate over 800 state-of-the-art, environmentally efficient aircraft and directly employ more than 50,000 people. Each year IACA airlines transport over 100 million passengers to 650 holiday destinations worldwide.