The Malta International Airport is one of 67 European airports which will be affected by a legislative report adopted by the European Parliament, that sets out common principles for levying airport charges at Community airports.
The directive aims to prevent any abuse of a dominant position in the market by individual airports, thus contributing to the balanced development of the EU airport sector. The report was adopted with 613 votes in favour, 33 against and 51 abstentions.
The adoption of the report should see airport charges being reduced by those terminals affected. The Commission had proposed that the new rules should apply to airports with annual traffic of more than one million passengers, but the European Parliament is in favour of five million passengers as a threshold, which accounted annually for more than 15 per cent of passenger movement in the member state in which it is located.
This reflects a concern that the directive, as drafted, would capture smaller airports which are not in a potentially market dominant position. The European Parliament’s decision means that 67 airports throughout the EU will be affected by the directive.
Under the new rules, all airports will be bound by common rules on provision of mutual information, transparency and the way airport charges may be collected. It is also planned to introduce national independent regulatory authorities to ensure that the directive is applied in full. This body, says the House, should establish procedures for resolving disagreements between the airport managing body and the airlines about changes to the level and structure of airport charges including those relating to quality of service.
Pre-financing new infrastructure projects
Parliament introduced a new amendment saying: “The airport managing body may pre-finance new infrastructure projects by increasing airport charges accordingly, on condition that a) airport users are provided with transparent information about the extent and duration of airport charge increases; b) all additional revenue is used solely for the construction of the planned infrastructure; c) all official authorisations have been obtained.”
Compromise amendments were adopted on the definition of airports charges, on airport networks, on the level of service quality to be provided by the airports managing body in return for the airports charge and the financing of new infrastructure projects.
The list of the 67 airports concerned is as follows:
Alicante, Amsterdam/Schiphol Athina/Eleftherios Venizelos, Barcelona, Berlin-Schoenefeld Berlin-Tegel, Birmingham, Bourgas, Bratislava, Bristol, Brussels/Brussels-National, Bucharest/Henri Coanda, Budapest/Ferihegy, Catania/Fontanarossa, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Faro, Frankfurt/Main, Glasgow, Gran Canaria, Hamburg, Hannover, Helsinki/Vantaa, Iraklion/Nikos Kazantzakis, Kobenhavn/Kastrup, Köln/Bonn, Lanzarote, Larnaka/INTL, Lisboa, Ljubljana, London Gatwick, London Heathrow, London Luton, London Stansted Luxembourg, Lyon Saint-Exupery, Madrid/Barajas, Malaga, Malta/Luqa, Manchester, Marseille-Provence, Milano/Linate, Milano/Malpensa, München, Newcastle, Nice-Cote d´Azur, Pafos/INTL, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris/Orly, Praha/Ruzyne, Riga, Rodos/Diagoras, Roma/Fiumicino, Sofia, Stockholm/Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tallinn, Tenerife Sur/Reina Sofia, Timisoara, Toulouse-Blagnac, Toulouse/CCER, Varna, Venezia/Tessera, Vilnius, Warszawa/Okecie and Wien/Schwechat.