The state-owned enterprise Boryspil International Airport in 2013-2016 provided discounts to the airport fees only to the private joint-stock company Ukraine International Airlines (UIA, Kyiv), according to recommendations of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine dated June 14 and published recently.
“The discounts were not provided to other airlines,” the committee said.
The committee said that since late 2012 the Infrastructure Ministry and Economic Development and Trade Ministry had permitted heads of airports to provide up to 80% discounts to airport fees to airlines. These are landing and takeoff fees, passenger servicing at terminals, aviation safety fees and above-limit aircraft parking.
The committee said that it requested the grounds for these discounts from the ministries, but no documents were received.
“Authorizing airport heads to apply up to 80% of discounts to the airport charges without economic efficiency calculations and without analyzing their impact on the specialized airport services market in Ukraine and on the passenger air transportation markets could be evidence of setting unjustifiably high upper airport fees,” the committee said.
The International Air Transport Association recommended that discounts could be provided only if they did not violate conditions of fair competition, they were not discriminative and applied justifiably. The discounts could be introduced after consultations with all airlines and approving the goals of the discounts and preferences.
The committee also said that the International Civil Aviation Organization charge policy should be observed: the preferences cannot be discriminative and fairly distributed among all users. They must be restricted in time, amount and number. (Interfax-Ukraine/Business World Magazine)
