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Heathrow Airport Holdings Limited

HAL

Heathrow Airport Holdings Limited owns and runs Heathrow Airport, the UK's aviation hub.

Lobbying Activity

Response to Charges for the use of airport infrastructure

11 Dec 2017

Mr Henrik Hololei Director-General DG MOVE European Commission Rue Demot 24-28 1040 Brussels BELGIUM Dear Mr Hololei, I am writing to you following the publication by the Commission of the Inception Impact Assessment (IIA) on the EU Airport Charges Directive (ACD). As you know, Heathrow has contributed credible evidence to the evaluation of the Airport Charges Directive, in which I also attended the weekend Florence Symposium with Commissioner Bulc and many other airport stakeholders. Heathrow has also been working towards embodying the EU Commission’s passenger-centric Aviation Strategy. We believe it is critical the Commission puts passengers at the heart of its evaluation of the ACD to deliver higher levels of service to passengers. Heathrow has worked hard to put passengers first and this is reflected in the proportion of passengers being ‘delighted’ with their experience at Heathrow increasing from 48% to 83% between 2007 and 2017. Evidence across the whole of Europe is that Airport Service Quality (ASQ) scores for European airports has also increased by 11% over the same period, showing an increasing focus on passengers. Delivering improved services to customers will also be key to the Commission’s objective of improving services and access to growing markets, as it will enable European Airports to compete for passenger traffic with other growing airports in the Middle East and parts of Asia who are voted as some of the best airports in the world for passengers. In addition to the focus on passengers, the Commission’s 2015 Aviation Strategy also aims to focus on growth by tackling capacity constraints and competition. We support this aim of the Commission and note that airport expansion can deliver economic benefits that significantly exceed its costs. In the case of Heathrow, the UK Government’s Airports Commission estimated that the wider economic benefits of expansion at Heathrow would be around ten times the cost, all of which would be privately funded (1). In addition, airport expansion supports the Commission’s aim of improving services and access to growing markets. Frontier Economics (2) has estimated that expansion at Heathrow would lead to over 40 new regular long-haul destinations, mostly to the Asia-Pacific region. Given the importance of airport expansion to delivering the aims of the Commission both in aviation and the economy and our societies more widely, it is important that the ACD actively supports investment by airports to address capacity constraints by supporting a fair return for investors. I hope we can move forward through this evaluation in-line with a focus on our passengers. Yours sincerely, John Holland-Kaye Chief Executive Officer Heathrow Airport -------------------------------------------------- (1) Airports Commission 2. Economy: Wider impacts Assessment, Table 29 shows NPV of GDP impacts between £112-£211bn, compared to a scheme cost of c£18bn. (2) Frontier Economics, Competition and Choice: A report prepared for Heathrow, Dec 17
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