Brussels, 14/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - At the Paris Air Forum on 11 July, EUROPE sounded out airports' expectations of the European legislator. Augustin de Romanet, who heads up the Paris airports (Charles de Gaule, Orly and Roissy), spoke of his concerns about the authorisation of liquids, gels and aerosols on board, ground handling and competition from the Arabian Peninsula.
Agence Europe: How is the feared lack of capacity in airports over the next decades going to be addressed? Is the European legislator's intervention through the airport package the correct approach?
Augustin de Romanet: Objectively, I don't have any particular concerns about European regulation, notwithstanding the results of the debates because two or three texts are still being discussed (Ed: ground handling, take-off and landing slots, noise pollution, have already been adopted). On the issue of ground handling services, the EU has taken an interesting initiative to encourage competition. I'm in favour of this and it is being practised in Parisian airports to help develop better value for money for airlines. In general, everything that lowers costs for the airlines is good for the airports because it promotes traffic flows and therefore our revenues. Moreover, the text on ground handling is useful insofar as it is proposing to introduce minimum quality criteria for service providers, which will help ensure the quality of services provided whilst developing competition. On the question of slots, we have been quite lucky in Paris as we don't have chronic congestion and the number of flights is actually remaining stable due to bigger aircraft and better capacity rates. I am therefore less concerned about this issue but cautious about the secondary market.
Liquids, aerosols and gels (LAGs) are gradually being allowed on board again. Are European airports prepared?
The first phase was put in place at the beginning of the year and the Commission would like to begin the second phase at the beginning of 2015 for transparent liquids in transparent containers. We do not support this because it does not take the situation on the ground into account: any changes effectively means in practice that machines and software have to change, personnel need to be trained, passengers made aware, which is expensive and complicated. We also believe that we do not yet have enough experience from the first phase after just a few months. We are determined to shift towards the total liberalisation of LAGs as soon as we can to make life easier for passengers but scanner manufacturers need to be technically prepared and there need to be enough of them so that they can be put in competition in Europe at acceptable costs.
The topglobal hubs are not necessarily in Europe as they were ten years ago (Paris, London, Amsterdam) but in the Middle East. Is it still possible to reverse this trend?
The trend is reversible as soon as we are prepared to pay sufficient attention to quality service in our airports. Basically, what differentiates one airport from another is the quality of reception, the pleasure one takes in being in an airport, as well as the pleasure one takes in the tourism in the surrounding areas. From this point of view, we have advantages because, if you travel from Latin America to Russia or Asia and you transit via the Paris hub, you can go on tourist excursions and gain a lot personally. If you go to a hub in the Middle East, the main thing you can do is to go shopping. Nonetheless, in order to benefit from these advantages and preserve its hubs, Europe must make an effort to better integrate the airport into the city and facilitate access to it. In Paris, we are working hard on this and are looking to create an express train line to the Charles de Gaulle airport. If I had a dream, it would be to make Europe help us achieve this aim through the TEN-T regulation and the Connecting Europe Facility. Overall, the EU has to better understand that the development of airports is a powerful tool for promoting economic growth, quite simply because tourism is assuming an ever increasing place in the world compared to car manufacturing, chemicals and steel. Therefore, regulation is needed that promotes airports and leaves a private/public mix with the task of developing models that provide sufficient incentives to ensure that the regulated share of aeronautic services are as productive as possible and at the same time airports are encouraged to develop other sources of revenue, particularly businesses and shops.