Brown Must Resist Threat of More Qirport Eed Tape for UK's Hard Pressed Passengers

Strasbourg, 15th January 2008 -- The EU's attempt to regulate the right of UK airports to charge for providing services and facilities could lead to more red tape and higher fares for passengers.

The Airport Charges Directive receives its first reading at the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week. The aim of the proposals is to put an end to disputes between airlines and airports over the cost and quality of services they provide.

British Conservatives are very much in favour of larger airports being subject to extra scrutiny where they hold a dominant market position. However, the UK already has the strong CAA regulatory system and any further regulation is an unnecessary interference which could have an adverse effect on regional airports which have a vital impact on local economies. Conservatives have tried to improve the measure in order to maintain an 'opt out' on a national basis or at least to lift the threshold so that most regional airports are exempt, but these attempts have not yet been successful.

Conservative Transport Spokesman, Timothy Kirkhope MEP, said:

"Gordon Brown needs to ensure that the Commission must not regulate for regulation’s sake.

"This directive is the Commission’s attempt to bring a large number of Community airports under its wing, and it has seen fit to do this because it believes there could be an imbalance in the relationship between airports and their users, the airlines. In some cases they are right; the more sizeable airports in the EU, like London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle, should be regulated so they are not in a position to abuse their market dominance. But I believe the smaller regional airports of the EU should only be regulated when they are found to be operating anti-competitively."

Mr. Kirkhope is pressing the Commission to clarify how to measure market dominance. The current proposal captures every Community airport with passenger numbers of five million per annum and above and with more than 15% of the passenger movements in the Member State.

He added: "Newcastle Airport in the UK, for example, with 5.2 million passengers, still has to compete with other airports all over the north of England to attract business. Why add burdensome and costly red tape to the smaller regional airports that do actually compete with each other and need to grow? That is why I want the possibility for national regulators to opt out their airports from this regulation."

ENDS