Regulating Privatized Infrastructures And Airport Services

A background paper for a course on transport privatization and regulation, organized by the World Bank Institute.For a World Bank Institute course on transport privatization, Betancor and Rendeiro (of the University of Las Palmas, Spain) cover basic issues associated with the regulation of privatized airport infrastructure and services:- Economic characteristics of airports. Three types of activities are carried out in airports: essential operational services (aeronautical and non-aeronautical), handling services (aeronautical and non-aeronautical), and commercial activities.Demand for basic airport services is directly influenced by trip purpose. The two types of airline customers (business and leisure travelers) need different levels of flexibility and tend to travel at different times. Analyzing airport capacity (practical and saturation) under peak demand is essential to airport success.Among other important issues: Runway costs, level and volume of service, pollution, congestion, and air traffic control.- Recent trends in the airport industry. The movement toward privatization may involve public ownership and private operation, including joint ventures; partial or majority divestiture; management contracts; and BOT (build-operate-transfer) schemes and variants, including BOOT (build-own-operate-transfer) schemes and LDO (lease-develop-operate) schemes.Or it may involve private ownership and operation.- Price regulation. Topics covered include traditional pricing policies; price regulation through an RPI-X formula; charges for congestion, noise, and other externalities; investment plans; and design of the regulatory system.- Regulation of quality in the industry. Topics covered: regulation of services to passengers (as measured by targets for check-in queues, immigration queues, baggage reclaim queues, concourse crowding, shopping, parking, and so on); fault repair times; average levels of passenger boarding and disembarkation and baggage delivery; safety; and investment obligations.- Performance indicators in the industry. Topics covered: strategic indicators and other financial indicators (including revenues), as well as indicators of cost, productivity, and quality of service.This paper - a product of Governance, Regulation, and Finance, World Bank Institute - was prepared as a background paper for the course on transport privatization organized by the institute. Ofelia Betancor may be contacted at [email protected].

The 1990s saw an increase in the liberalisation of transport policies and a strengthening of the role of private operators and investors in transport infrastructure worldwide. The search for sustained improvement in efficiency is probably secondary to the need to find additional financing, but it is improvement in services that is at the core of the new role of the government in transport. Governments must now become fair economic regulators of many of the privately operated transport services and infrastructures. This book examines the major challenges that governments are likely to face in taking on their new role in transport.

This tour d'horizon book reviews airport regulation and competition in different regions of the world and contrasts different policy perspectives. Organized in four parts, the first three examine, in turn, Australasia, North America, and Europe, while the last section looks at the institutional reforms that have taken place in these regions. The book covers the regulation of airports, and competition in different regions, as well as privatization policy, the interaction between airports and airlines, and regional economic impacts. It also examines the linkages between governance structures and forms of regulation. The book's global sweep embraces all the large aviation markets, bringing together the ideas and challenges of academic economists, airlines, airport managers, consultants and government regulators. As well as looking at different methods, degrees and paradigms of regulation it also spells out the stress-points, in a way that makes essential reading for airport operators, airline operations staff, as well as academic economists concerned with transport studies. It also offers interesting reading and important lessons for those concerned with regulation of the utility industries such as, telecommunications, water and power generation and distribution - where infrastructure can be subject to natural monopoly characteristics and where firms competing in downstream markets are dependent on the investment and operational strategies of the upstream infrastructure operator.

Over the past thirty years, airports within the EU – including nearly a hundred newly built or rebuilt during that time – have undergone a major economic transformation. From mere infrastructure providers, airports have become diversified and complex commercial enterprises in competition with each other. This is the first and only book thus far to deal with the legal issues surrounding this important development, focusing on the impact of EU Directive 12/2009 on airport charges. Examining the use of airport infrastructure, the growing competition among airports, and the relations between airlines and airports, the author, a leading aviation law practitioner, covers such issues and topics as the following: - types of charges – landing, passenger, aircraft parking; - pricing factors determining airport charges; - vertical contractual relations between airports and airlines; - airport market power and dominance; - issues of consultation and transparency; - ability of airlines and passengers to switch to alternative airports; - application of state aid rules; - security charges; - environmental charges and schemes; and - price discrimination and differentiation. The presentation encompasses a critical analysis of the findings of case law, both international and European, on airport charges in the context of the new trend of airports and airlines concluding vertical agreements. As an examination of the economic regulation of EU airports due to the liberalization process, structural changes in the ownership status of many EU airports, and the emergence of new airline business models (such as low-cost carriers), this book, the only one of its kind, will quickly become indispensable to practitioners, policymakers, and academics in aviation law.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 66: Considering and Evaluating Airport Privatization addresses the potential advantages and disadvantages of implementing various approaches to airport privatization.

Aviation performance is an important cog in modern globalized economies, which demand flexibility, mobility, efficiency, and dependability. Airport delays have gone from being a nuisance to being a salient public concern, drawing the ire of even the White House. In this important book, international transportation experts compare and contrast how different nations have managed their airports and air traffic control systems and how well they are meeting the needs of their people. The book's cross-national approach encompasses several different institutional arrangements, making it a timely and valuable study in comparative political economy. Among the countries studied, the United States is sometimes seen as a bastion of free markets, at the forefront of airline deregulation, but its airports and air traffic control system are publicly owned and operated. The same is true in continental Europe, for the most part. In contrast, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada are experimenting with privatization, while even mainland China is allowing the private sector to participate in airport ownership. Which methods work best, and under what circumstances? This book provides the answers.

Containerized shipping has brought profound changes to maritime transport, including a shift from labor-intensive to more capital-intensive activities. Revising the traditional organization of seaports everywhere will prepare ports for a more competitive market and less financial dependence on governments.