http://www.airlinerworld.com 55scarce supply means that co-ordination
is critical. About two thirds of airports
needing slot co-ordination are in
Europe. And there are bottlenecks
around the world – Sydney, Bangkok,
Manila, Jakarta, Mumbai, Mexico City,
New York and São Paulo – to name just
a few. That demonstrates the size of the
infrastructure challenge.”
On affordability, de Juniac highlighted
a “worrisome trend” of escalating costs.
“The initial bill for [the third runway
at] Heathrow is £17bn, the bill for
Singapore’s T4, T5 and third runway is
SGD30bn – what are they doing for that
money?” he questioned. “In London the
cost of [building that] runway is £235m
- what are they doing to increase
£235m to £17bn? I know there are land
appropriation costs, etc, but come on...
the increase in costs is unbelievable.”
Heathrow has since estimated it can
complete the third runway project for
£14bn but despite this reduction, Willie
Walsh, the boss of British Airways’
parent, IAG, is pushing for a cap
on what Heathrow can charge its
customers to ensure the costs of the
third runway are not passed on to the
airlines and ultimately the passengers.
Action
IATA is actively encouraging
governments to work with the industry
to plan and build the infrastructure
and to allocate scarce capacity
efficiently, using global standards. De
Juniac also urged governments to be
cautious about privatisation of airports
and to learn from others’ mistakes.
In particular IATA wants ironclad
regulation that protects “the national
interest ”.
“Getting this right is difficult to do,” he
admitted. “It must carefully balance the
interests of the investors to turn a profit
with the public interest for the airport to
be a catalyst for economic growth. To
be blunt, we have not seen an airport
privatisation that has fully lived up to
expectations. By all means invite
private sector expertise to bring
commercial discipline and a customer
service focus to airport management.But our view is that the ownership is
best left in public hands.”
De Juniac pointed to Seoul’s Incheon
Airport as a good example of what
can be achieved. The Korean airport’s
Terminal 2 opened in January at a cost
of $2.5bn. It has a capacity to handle
18mppa, increasing the airport’s total
capacity to 72mppa.
“Importantly, that has been done
without raising charges. In fact,
Incheon recently extended a discount
on airport charges that was introduced
two years ago. The result? Aviation
plays a key role in linking the Korean
economy to economic opportunities
globally.”
The Director General said the issue of
airport privatisation is one that
needs “careful attention and
urgent thinking”. He added: “It
will be a main focus for IATA in
the coming years.”IATA wants more to be
done to protect airlines
from the financial
burden of building new
facilities at airports
such as Heathrow.
HEATHROW AIRPORTDe Juniac warned guests
at the Singapore Airshow
Aviation Leadership
Summit in February “we
are headed for a crisis”
because of the lack of
investment in aviation
infrastructure.