Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-10-22-Speech-3-489"
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"en.20081022.25.3-489"2
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"Madam President, I welcome the increased transparency introduced by these new rules on airport charges. Too often, airports are secretive about the deals they strike, even when they are owned or part-owned by public authorities. The public has a right to know how such airports are raising and spending their money. But I am disappointed that the threshold for greater reporting has been set at five million, with no reference to percentage national market share.
This threshold will hit particularly hard regional airports such as Newcastle. With six million passengers a year, Newcastle comes above the threshold, yet it is a minnow compared to the giants of Heathrow and Gatwick. Since regional airports compete mainly with their nearest neighbours, it would have been fairer to have had a system which treated all small and medium-sized airports in the same way.
I therefore regret that the Council did not pursue the option of confining the scope of the directive to airports with over five million passenger movements per annum and over 15% of national passenger movements. Such a threshold would still have ensured that Europe’s big airports could not dictate airline charges behind closed doors. I hope that, when the Commission reviews the directive, it will look carefully at whether regional airports like Newcastle are suffering from market distortion."@en1
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