16 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION DECEMBER 2017Preflight Australian aviation news & views
IATA boss says airport privatisation a failure
I
nternational Air Transport
Association (IATA) chief
executive and director general
Alexandre de Juniac says the
privatisation of airports around
the world by governments often
seeking a short-term boost to the
budget has proven to be a failure.
Speaking to the Association
of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA)
assembly of presidents in Taipei,
de Juniac said airports performed
better in public hands.
“That is the conclusion of three
decades of largely disappointing
experiences with airport
privatisation,” he said in his speech
on October 25.
“The primary focus of airports
should be to support local and
national prosperity as an economic
catalyst.
“But in private hands,
shareholder returns take top
priority. And we struggle with costs
at privatised airports as far flung as
Paris, Sydney and Santiago.”
His comments come as the
aviation industry tries to cope with
the growing demand for air travel,
with the number of passengers in
the Asia Pacific alone expectedto more than double to about 2.
billion annually over the next two
decades.
Infrastructure looms as the major
bottleneck, with many airports
in the region at or above design
capacity, air traffic management
constrained by a lack of inter-
government cooperation regarding
airspace, and slot restrictions acting
as a handbrake on growth.
While de Juniac said
privatisation was “not by itself
negative”, the regulation of those
airports – both the regulatory
framework and the regulatory body- lacked efficiency.
“What we have seen is that
regulating privatised airports is
difficult, to be polite, and has been
a failure, to be impolite,” de Juniac
told reporters on the sidelines of the
AAPA conference after his speech.
“We haven’t found any
government or any country that
has been able to regulate efficiently
privatised airports. So we have seen
in countries in which airports are
privatised an increase in airport
charges, in whatever we pay to land
and to park our aircraft. At the same
time the airfares have decreased.
The gap is significant.”
Further, de Juniac noted those
airports that regularly topped the
list of the world’s best airports,
citing Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong
Kong, Seoul Incheon and Singapore
Changi as examples, were all in
government hands.
He said the move to sell off
airports was often not triggered by
aviation interests but pressures on
government budgets.
“It is because the state needs
money,” he said.
“When they are privatised, the
public entities, whether it is local
governments or states, they wash
their hands about this infrastructure
which is absolutely monstrous
because when you talk about hubs it
is national interest infrastructure.”
In Australia, the major capital
airports are either publicly-listed
companies or held by large
investment or superannuation funds.
And the industry group
representing the nation’s airports,
the Australian Airports Association
(AAA), has previously talked
up the benefits of privatisation,
noting the “billions of dollars of
private investment that would haveotherwise come from the pockets
of taxpayers under a government
ownership model”.
AAA chief executive Caroline
Wilkie, writing in the August
edition of Australian Aviation, said
the privatisation of the nation’s
airports that began with Brisbane,
Melbourne and Perth two decades
ago had “arguably been one of the
most successful and transformative
infrastructure privatisation processes
this country has ever seen”.
“It’s also worth remembering
that our major airports remain over
85 per cent Australian-owned by
Australian superannuation funds,
so the investment in our critical
infrastructure and the benefits it
delivers helps drive our economy,”
Wilkie said.
“While we observe the
challenges currently facing several
other infrastructure sectors as
they begin the transition to private
ownership, perhaps there are some
valuable lessons that can be learned
from our major airports.”
IATA has conducted an
extensive study on airports, the
details of which de Juniac said
would be released soon.SriLankan arrives in Melbourne
S
riLankan Airlines has
returned to Australia for the
first time since 2001 with
the start of nonstop flights
between Melbourne and
Colombo.
The inaugural service, operated
by Airbus A330-300 4R-ALM,
touched down at Melbourne Airport
at about 1515 on October 31,
following its 10-hour journey from
Colombo.
The aircraft was on the ground
for about two hours before
operating the return flight back to
Colombo’s Bandaranaike Airport.
SriLankan last flew to Australia
in 2001, when it ended flights
between Colombo and Sydney.
AirLanka, which preceded what is
now SriLankan, operated Colombo-
Sydney-Melbourne-Colombo
services with Lockheed L
Tristars in the early 1990s.SriLankan chief executive
Captain Suren Ratwatte, chairman
Ajith Dias and Sri Lankan State
Minister of Public Enterprise
Development Lakshman YapaAbeywardena also travelled to
Melbourne on the first flight.
“We’re incredibly excited to
be connecting Melbourne and
Colombo like never before,”Captain Ratwatte said.
“We look forward to providing
our award-winning service,
delivered with world-renowned Sri
Lankan warmth and hospitality,
as Australians travel to Sri Lanka,
India, the Maldives and beyond.”
Melbourne is the oneworld
alliance member’s second-longest
route behind its Colombo-London
Heathrow flight, and Captain
Ratwatte noted Australia was home
to one of the largest Sri Lankan
expatriate communities, many of
whom lived in Melbourne.
SriLankan is hoping its new
flight will attract Australians
travelling not just to Sri Lanka but
also beyond to countries such as
India and the Maldives.
While the inaugural flight was
operated by an A330-300, the
smaller A330-200 will operate the
route on an on-going basis.SriLankan Airlines A330-300 4R-ALM lands
at Melbourne on October 31.VICTOR PODY