Kevin O'Toole/LONDON
Europe's airlines are continuing their attack on airport charges, unveiling a study which highlights massive variations in costs within the region and suggests that European charging levels are two or three times higher than for their USor Asian counterparts.
The issue re-ignited in 1997 when members of the Association of European Airlines (AEA) called for a full study into airport costs, following preliminary findings by the UK's Cranfield University that charging practices were "complex and obscure".
The new Cranfield study covers 29 European airports, as well as four US and three Asia-Pacific hubs for comparison. The figures are based on turnaround costs for three common types of aircraft -the Boeing 747-400, 737-400 and Airbus A300-600 - including normal landing and navigation fees, through to environmental penalties and ground handling charges.
The resulting ranking shows that Vienna, clearly the most expensive hub, came close to charging twice the level of low-cost hubs such as Luxembourg. Others among the persistently most expensive are Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt and Munich.
The AEA admits that the lowest fees are charged by less sophisticated airports, but adds that international hubs such as London Gatwick and Madrid are also among the lowest.
Virtually none of the European airports managed to beat the low level of charges of the US or Asia-Pacific sample, which included Washington Dulles, Bangkok and Singapore as the most expensive.
Lack of competition for ramp handling services helps to explain part of the gap on prices, argues the AEA. The nine most expensive European airports all operate with ramp handling monopolies, while those within the non-European sample all allowed competition. European handling costs are 70% higher than for US airports and some 40%above levels in Asia Pacific, concludes the report.
Ground charges have also come in for tough criticism from Europe's emerging low-cost airline competitors. Virgin Express president Jonathan Ornstein says that airport ground operations are the airline's largest single cost.
Source: Flight International
