Regional airports escape EU rules

IRELAND’S regional airports will escape new EU rules they say would have increased their costs and made them less competitive.

Instead, the regulations will apply only to Europe’s 67 biggest airports, with Dublin being the only Irish one.

Big airlines will no longer be able to demand special deals exclusive to them that include low landing fees.

Instead, all airport authorities must publish their fees for the services they provide and an independent regulator in each country must oversee their operations.

But it is not clear whether the changes will mean higher flying costs. Airport fees account for between 4% and 8% of the operating costs of the main airlines.

The Dublin Airport Authority said the new rules should not affect them as they have been regulated since 2001 and publish their fees and standard charges and incentive schemes which are open to all airlines.

Initially, smaller airports were to have been included in legislation, but strong lobbying by airports, airlines and governments convinced the European Parliament to introduce changes. Now only airports that deal with five million passengers a year or more will have to meet the new standards, once the new rules become law.

Fine Gael MEP Jim Higgins welcomed the agreement.

The directive deals with the way in which airports can finance future infrastructure developments; amend airport charges; make charges transparent, and also the use of independent regulators where there is disagreement between airport users and the airport.