The European Commission today decided that the Italian Government's planned shareout of airline traffic between Milan's two airports is discriminatory, disproportionate and therefore illegal. The Commission had delayed formal adoption of the decision for a week in the hope that the Italian authorities would present alternative traffic distribution arrangements. Milan is served by two airports, Linate and the new Malpensa 2000 airport due to open formally on October 25th 1998. But nine European carriers have complained to the Commission that the criteria the Italian Government has used to determine which routes should fly from which airport effectively gives the Italian carrier Alitalia a competitive advantage over other European airlines. The Commission agrees that the present system is discriminatory and therefore incompatible with European law.
In taking this decision, the Commission has fulfilled its obligation under the law. In this case, the Commission has no power, nor seeks, to propose or impose any solutions to the Italian Government. In practical terms however, the effect of the decision is that any airline forced to Malpensa on the basis of the existing arrangements may legally oppose the transfer.
Neil Kinnock, the European Commissioner responsible for transport said, "The failure of the Italian Government to produce an alternative distribution system that is non-discriminatory and proportionate meant that the Commission had no other choice but to adopt a negative decision today. As I have always made clear, I have a duty to ensure that Community law is upheld. In aviation, the commercial interest of European carriers and the wellbeing of passengers depends on it. Italy has had months of repeated warnings that the current arrangements posed legal problems that risked compromising their plans for Malpensa 2000. I believe in the success of Malpensa 2000 and it is because I want to see it attract praise and confidence, not criticism, that I have invested so much time in urging the Italian Government to find a traffic distribution system that is compatible with the law."
Background
The Italian authorities intend to open Malpensa on October 25th 1998 as a second national hub (the other being Rome-Fiumicino) serving a large catchment area of northern Italy and the surrounding region. Currently most of the flights in and out of Milan are routed through Linate - an airport near the centre of town.
The project, which as one of the TransEuropean Transport Network priority projects has received EU funding, has meant enlarging the facilities at the existing Malpensa airport to cope with the extra capacity and building a series of infrastructure links, road and rail, to link Malpensa to the centre of Milan - a distance of 53 kilometres.
In order to promote the new airport, the Italian authorities have passed a decree that all routes with more than 2 million passengers annually will continue to fly out of Linate and that all other flights will operate out of Malpensa. However, delays in the infrastructure building mean that the proposed links from Milan to Malpensa are not adequate. The two million passenger threshold ensures that in practice only flights to Rome Fiumicino may operate from Linate. In February nine European carriers (British Airways, Iberia, TAP, Sabena, Lufthansa, Air France, Olympic, Austria Airlines, SAS) complained to the European Commission that these arrangements were discriminatory and disproportionate. The carriers argue in essence that, the important thing for all airlines is to be able to "feed" their hubs - or operational centres - with passengers from as wide an area as possible via smaller airports.
Under the arrangements established by the Italian authorities, the carriers argue that, while Alitalia can feed passengers from Milan Linate to its Rome hub to supply onward routes, other carriers are not able to feed passengers from Milan Malpensa to their hubs because the infrastructure links from central Milan to Malpensa are insufficient to cope with passenger volume. They argue therefore that Malpensa is unattractive to potential passengers who will continue to choose to fly from Linate (and thus with Alitalitia) in preference to making the long trip to Malpensa Under the market access provision of the EU's third legislative package relating to civil aviation liberalisation, an EU Member State has the right to distribute traffic across its airport system as it sees fit but Article 8:1 of Regulation (EEC) No. 2408/92 of 23 July 1992 on access for Community air carriers to intra-Community air routes states:"This regulation shall not affect a Member State's right to regulate without discrimination on grounds of nationality or identity of the air carrier, the distribution of traffic between the airports within an airport system".
Source:
RAPID
16/ 09/ 98