The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today issued a draft decision to allow Canberra Airport to increase charges to fund a major apron expansion at the airport.
The new apron is a common user facility that will be available to all airlines.
"The regulatory arrangements covering price capped airports allow airport operators to apply to the ACCC to recover the costs of necessary new infrastructure expenditure through charging increases outside the cap", ACCC Chairman, Professor Allan Fels, said today. "These provisions were designed to provide incentives for the timely development of necessary new aeronautical infrastructure.
"The apron expansion will provide additional aircraft parking bays for Impulse Airlines and other new entrants as well as catering for growth by Qantas and Ansett.
"The draft decision is to approve a charge of $0.556 per arriving and departing passenger. This is lower than the charge proposed by Canberra Airport. The reason for this is that the ACCC's draft decision adopts a lower rate or return and lower land rental charges than proposed and excluded master plan costs".
The ACCC sought preliminary comments from airport users on Canberra Airport's proposals and had regard to these in reaching its draft decision.
The ACCC now seeks submissions on the draft decision. These submissions will be taken into account by the ACCC in reaching its final decision.
Copies of the draft decision will be available on the ACCC web-site, www.accc.gov.au, under airports.