AIG overstates net income for past five years by €3.1bn
The increase would hike the charge per passenger from 5.09 to 7.05 and is likely to result in dearer airline tickets.
Other charges of €5.94 and €6.57 have also been suggested in the review, which will be open to a period of consultation with the industry. The proposed charges were outlined in Dublin yesterday by the aviation regulator, Bill Prasifka.
After the consultation period is completed, the regulator will finalise the increases, which will be introduced by the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) in October.
Ryanair, which published full-year results yesterday, condemned the charges plan. Deputy chief executive Michael Cawley said they were a “farce”.
Mr Cawley said that when the regulator was appointed five years ago, Dublin Airport was 50% more inefficient than comparable airports elsewhere. And all he had done in the meantime is to “reward that inefficiency with a series of price increases,” he said.
The only answer to the problems at Dublin Airport was “open competition,” which is what Ryanair has been advocating for quite some time, he said.
The current price cap is €5.09 per passenger. In the draft report, the authority offers a number of scenarios, which range from a new price of €5.12 without major infrastructural projects to €7.05, which allows for spending of €1bn by the DAA to the end of 2014.
That higher charge of €7.09 allows for the building of Pier D, the second airport terminal and a second runway at the existing airport.
That level of charge would also allow the company to operate to best international standards.
In effect, it would allow the group to pay off its borrowings within a five-year period, Mr Prasifka said.
DAA is sitting on debts of close to €500m, having been lumbered with the borrowings of other airports and those of the Great Southern Hotels following the break-up of Aer Rianta.
The draft review of charges says that significant savings could be made by the DAA including more efficiency by staff and cuts in staff numbers in certain areas.
Job cuts have not been identified by the report.
This latest review follows the introduction of the State Airports Act 2004, which allowed for the restructuring of Aer Rianta into three separate bodies governing Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports. The new act requires the commission to come up with a new price cap for Dublin Airport by October 1 2005.
In the preparation of the report, the commission employed several consultants, including Booz Allen Hamilton, to evaluate the performance at the airport.
Based on 2003 data, DAA outperformed the European average of “total core” passenger costs by about 4%.
Judged against the very best performing airports, it was 40% less efficient, the same study found.
