Portugal’s French owned airports authority has announced a rise in charges for airlines landing at Lisbon and Oporto airports, due to 'a growth in air traffic.'
Unable to come up with any plausible reason for hiking the charges, ANA’s thinking is hardly likely to encourage growth, but takes full advantage of Portugal as a growing destination for tourists.
The increases are not huge per passenger, the preferred way that ANA puts them to the media, but a 5.38% increase for Lisbon and 1.90% for Oporto soon adds up with the passenger paying the fees through higher ticket prices.
The statement published by ANA paves the way for new increases in January for all Portugal’s airports, Faro included, with an increase of 0.89%.
According to the company led by Ponce de Leon, which from the beginning of 2013 has been owned by the French 'Vinci Group', these tariff rises result from an increase in traffic at the two airports “above forecasts in 2014 - a 4.6% deviation in Lisbon’s Portela and 9.2% in the Francisco Sá Carneiro airport in Oporto.”
Most economic models would see prices drop as usage goes, up but ANA is a monopoly, an essential national service handed to the French by a government desperate for money.
ANA further attempts to justify the decision by referring to pricing differential between the two airports, and indeed Faro. The jump in airport transfer drop off fees at Faro recently was justified by ANA as ‘still cheaper than Lisbon,’ thus missing the point the varying geographical and economic areas have different abilities to afford the ‘one fee fits all’ policy at different times of the toruism cycle.
ANA also uses history as an excuse as "this tariff decision is in line with what already occurred in 2014” and “promotes a more stable pricing trend in rates between 2015 and 2016, while maintaining sufficient safety margin to absorb, if it occurs, any slowdown in those airports traffic growth," added the statement, faultless in its unilateral declaration that it is in charge of prices and will act how it sees fit to ensure French shareholders receive the full benefit of Pedro Passos Coelho’s largesse.
