In view of the expected adoption of the new EU Aviation Package on 2 December, Augustin de Romanet, President of ACI EUROPE and President & CEO of Aéroports de Paris, met again with Violeta Bulc, the EU Transport Commissioner on 15 October. He was accompanied by Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport Company, and Armando Brunini, CEO of Aeroporto di Napoli – both members of the Board of ACI EUROPE.
The 3 CEOs underlined ACI EUROPE’s support for the EC’s initiative to implement a new Aviation Package, as part of its new political priorities focused on “Jobs, Growth and Investment”, and stressed the need to ensure the strategic competitiveness of the aviation sector. In particular, they advocated that the new Aviation Package should focus on air connectivity, consumers and the economy. All of which is supported by one of the key findings of the ACI EUROPE Economic Impact of European Airports, conducted by InterVISTAS: +10% increase in connectivity is associated with +0.5% increase in GDP per capita.
Commissioner Bulc received the 3 CEOs warmly and spoke of how constructively many of Europe’s airports had engaged with her team during the previous months. The ensuing discussion included exchanges on airport capacity, safety, Open Skies, the Single European Sky and airport charges.
Augustin de Romanet summarised the urgency of the moment: “The Aviation Package is a unique opportunity to reset aviation policy with a strong focus on connectivity, consumers and the economy. The issues that need to be addressed are many, starting from our license to grow and the looming airport capacity crunch. They also include scrapping heavy and unfair national aviation taxes, securing access to emerging markets through Open Skies, delivering the Single European Sky and reducing regulatory cost inefficiencies – in particular within aviation security.”
On the occasion of meeting, the 3 CEOs also presented Commissioner Bulc with a specially designed poster, featuring key route development campaigns from more than 20 airport operators all over Europe. The #AirportsCompete poster was produced by ACI EUROPE and the Commissioner was delighted with it. The diversity and enthusiastic marketing efforts on display in the poster serve as a reminder of just how much market power many of Europe’s key airlines have, when negotiating airport charges with European airports.