Aer Lingus wins appeal against airport price controls

In August 2001, the Irish Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR), the sector regulator, set a price control for airport charges (at Dublin, Cork and Shannon). Aer Lingus, with Ryanair and others, appealed against the determination in October 2001. Frontier (London) assisted in drafting the airline's written submission to the Appeal Panel and a member of Frontier staff participated in an oral submission to the panel, putting the economic case for the appeal. In January 2001, the Appeal Board ruled that the CAR's determination should be reviewed, on a number of grounds appealed by Aer Lingus, including inadequate use of benchmarking results to set efficiency targets for the airports, excessive depreciation allowances, errors in the construction of price control formulae and an apparent loophole that would allow the airport operator to "game" the control by altering cargo charges. Frontier subsequently assisted Aer Lingus in drafting its submission to the CAR on how the revised price controls should be set. CAR is to issue its revised determination by February 9th. The Appeal Panel's decision, and other documents relating to the price control process, are available on the Commission's website.