Complaints and enquiries - Air Transport Users Council

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18 to change the date or the name of a reservation for a fee was better than not being able to make a change at all and having to buy a new ticket, which was previously the case with most airlines. Consultations and Inquiries In addition to our primarily proactive advocacy work generated from complaints, we represent the interest of passengers through responding to consultations and inquiries. This section summarises a selection of the consultations. A full list is on page 22. Aviation Duty In April, we responded to the Treasury’s consultation on proposals to introduce an Aviation Duty to replace Air Passenger Duty (APD). The Government proposed to replace APD with a per plane tax on the grounds that this would better reflect the environmental impact of individual aircraft. We said that we had no objection in principle to environmental levies or taxes, provided there was a clear connection between the charges and the mitigation of the impact of aviation on the environment. But we had doubts whether a per-plane tax would achieve this better than APD. This was because the burden on airlines, and therefore potentially the amount payable by passengers, would be dependent on the destination of only the ex UK flight, in contrast to APD which is dependent on the final destination. Passengers going to long haul destinations might therefore have been more likely to choose to fly via a European hub airport instead of on a direct long haul flight from a UK airport. We suggested that this could potentially reduce the overall amount of tax collected by the Government. The Government has since dropped plans to introduce the tax and instead plans to increase APD from November 2009. Airport regulation Review of the economic regulation of airports in the UK In October, the Department for Transport (DfT) published a consultation on a review of economic regulation of airports in the UK. In its review, the DfT invited comments on its initial thinking on the rationale for intervention in the airport market and on a regulatory regime that was fit for purpose over the long term.
19 The AUC’s principal concern was for the interests of passengers to be taken fully into account in all regulatory decisions. We believed that that this would be best achieved by giving the CAA a primary duty to consumers. We questioned whether airlines would always make decisions in the best interests of passengers – and, by extension, whether they could always be relied upon to act as proxy for passengers’ interests in discussion of airport charges. Different airlines would have different incentives in respect of airport investment decisions such as on timing, scale or quality. And those views may not always be completely aligned with their passengers’ aspirations. We suggested therefore that there was, in theory at least, an inherent potential conflict between shareholder profit aspirations and passenger interests in service quality. In addition, we suggested that regulation was only part of the solution. Good passenger experience at an airport depended equally on good management by airport companies and on the Government playing its part in the provision of surface access infrastructure and adequate resources for border control. In March, the DfT published a further, more detailed, consultation on the review of economic regulation. We submitted a response on the 2 nd June, a copy of which can be found on our website. Price control proposals for Stansted Airport charges for 2009-2014 In December, the CAA published a consultation on its proposals for the setting of new price controls at Stansted Airport for the period 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2014. Our major interest in the consultation concerned the CAA’s proposals on service quality in response to the Competition Commission’s (CC)’s finding that BAA had failed in its provision of airport services of adequate quality. We agreed with the CAA that the evidence put forward by the CC was sufficiently compelling for the CAA to propose to introduce a Service Quality Regime at Stansted similar to the ones already in place at Heathrow and Gatwick. We considered that these regimes had provided passengers with a transparent and measurable benefit of price cap regulation. In March, the CAA published its decision on setting a price cap for Stansted from 2009-14. It introduced a regime with a set of service performance standards and rebates under which the airport operator would reimburse airlines up to seven per cent of airport charges where the airport’s service performance fell short of the defined standards. The CAA decided to base
Page 1: AIR TRANSPORT USERS COUNCIL ANNUAL
Page 4 and 5: 2 CHAIRMAN’S INTRODUCTION There h
Page 6 and 7: 4 REVIEW OF THE YEAR Complaints and
Page 8 and 9: 6 Telephone enquiries in 2008/09 Ty
Page 10 and 11: 8 compensate a number of passengers
Page 12 and 13: 10 Schedule changes Last year we re
Page 14 and 15: 12 Representing passengers Consumer
Page 16 and 17: 14 Besides, we suggested that it wa
Page 18 and 19: 16 Financial protection Last year t
Page 22 and 23: 20 two-thirds of the standards and
Page 24 and 25: 22 Consultations and Inquiries Civi
Page 26 and 27: 24 Guest speakers at AUC Council me
Page 28 and 29: 26 She has written several text boo
Page 30 and 31: 28 Secretariat (as of March 31 st 2
Page 32 and 33: 30 • The AUC shall consist of a C
Page 34: 32 GLOSSARY APD Air Passenger Duty

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