Your article in the December issue about airport charges is both timely and perhaps an even wider issue than your readers might believe.
While some airports have their operational charges capped, many charges levied on handlers are not capped and yet they are as much a part of an operational cost as a landing fee. We see extraordinary increases being applied to ancillary charges such as staff car parking, and airports try to increase rents well above inflation even though they often have few, if any, incremental costs.
Low-cost carriers have shown that airports must gain more revenue directly from passengers, and less from the airlines that bring in their customers, without whom the airport would be pointless.
Airports must consider costs to operational companies such as handlers as part of the charges to airlines and not part of their general revenue - otherwise the move to lower-cost airports will further increase.
John Willis Chairman GlobeGround/Servisair
Source: Airline Business