Airports rapped for high parking fees Author: Rachel Nickless Date: 07/12/2006 Publication: The Financial Review Section: News Page: 13
Melbourne and Sydney airports have denied accusations they are price-gouging on airport car parking fees, saying critics fail to consider the cost of expanding parking facilities in recent years.
The Australian Automobile Association told a Productivity Commission inquiry into price regulation of airport services that in 2004-05, Melbourne Airport had a 62 per cent profit increase on the previous year from car parking.
It used Australian Competition and Consumer Commission figures to show Melbourne Airport earned $38.55 million in profits from car parking facilities in 2004-05.
But a Melbourne Airport spokeswoman said the figures were misleading. "They pay no regard to the more than $50 million invested in building extra airport car parking since 2002," she said. The airport had increased the number of car parks by more than 70 per cent since then, she said.
She declined to provide the airport's own profit figures taking infrastructure costs into account, and denied Melbourne Airport was ratcheting up parking charges.
"When it comes to short-term parking, we benchmark our prices against central business district parking. We're cheaper than the majority," she said. For long-term parking, the airport competed with off-site providers and was cheaper than all but one, she said.
A Sydney Airport Corp spokesman said the increase in parking profits was due to new products such as long-term parking. "Our car parking has gone up with [the consumer price index] since privatisation in 2002," he said.
The AAA's director of research and policy, John Metcalfe, said airports had to be transparent about their construction costs, how they were accounted for and over what period if they questioned the ACCC figures.
"If airport charges were in fact the same, or similar to, those in the CBD, this evidence alone indicates that airport car parking charges are too high and display monopolistic behaviour," he said.
"It's fair to say that land values are much higher in the CBD. It would be more appropriate to compare car-parking charges in outer suburbs with those at the airport."
He said travellers had more options when it came to travelling to the CBD, because public transport was cheaper and more direct, while cars could drop off or pick up people on the side of the road.
In its submission to the Productivity Commission, the NSW government raised concerns that airports had a vested interest in encouraging people to travel by car or taxi rather than public transport because they profited from parking and taxi rank charges.
It noted that of the seven price-monitored airports in Australia, on average 55 per cent of their revenues were generated from "non-aeronautical" services.