High Court Forces Aviation Regulator to Clarify Decision

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Ryanair News
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News Release
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20.05.08
High Court Forces Aviation Regulator to Clarify Decision on DAA Capex

APPEALS PANEL MUST NOW REVIEW ABUSIVE €1.2BLN. CAPEX PLAN

Ryanair, Ireland’s largest airline, today (Tuesday, 20th May 2008) welcomed the High Court’s decision on its appeal of the Commission for Aviation Regulation’s (CAR’s) Interim Determination on airport charges at Dublin Airport. The Court found that there was “clear ambiguity” in the CAR’s determination and that Ryanair was justified in bringing the claim. The Court ordered the CAR to clarify its treatment of €1.2bln. worth of capex in its interim review and the CAR has now confirmed that this figure has been included in the regulated asset base (RAB), which will lead to a doubling of passenger charges at Dublin Airport. The Court also found that the Minister for Transport was wrong in not allowing Ryanair to appeal the inclusion of this €1.2 bln. Ryanair is therefore again calling on the Minister to establish an Appeals Panel with a view to removing this abusive spending from the RAB .

Ryanair will be highlighting to the Appeals Panel the fact that the DAA airport monopoly has consistently ignored the reasonable requirements of users and is providing massively over specified and costly facilities in order to inflate passenger charges. The UK authorities have recognised that this form of RAB based regulation is seriously flawed and Ryanair is therefore reissuing its call on the Minister to sack the regulator and introduce competition at Dublin Airport.

Speaking today following the High Court’s decision Ryanair’s Jim Callaghan said:

“We welcome the High Court’s finding that the CAR made a mess of the interim determination and was forced to clarify it. Although the Court did not overturn the decision, the Judge clarified that Ryanair is entitled to appeal the substance of the decision before an Appeals Panel established by the Minister for Transport. We are therefore calling on the Minister to establish this panel in order to remove the wasteful spending that the CAR allowed into the RAB.

The CAR’s bungled decision, which has now been “clarified” demonstrates the serious flaws in this form of regulation, where an abusive monopoly is allowed to recover from airport users for what is clearly massively wasteful spending. Even the CAR confirmed that DAA’s planned Terminal 2 was at least 50% too large and yet he allowed them to recover on the vast majority of this expenditure.

It is high time that the Minister for Transport abandons this failed regulatory system and allows for competition at Dublin Airport. Regulation has been an abject failure, it’s time to allow competition to reduce prices and improve services at Dublin Airport.”