'Global airport privatisation experience shows grave risks'

Singapore: With India going ahead with airport privatisation, a top global aviation official on Thursday warned that the worldwide experience was marred with "very grave risks" and a tough regulator was essential to ensure proper functioning of private airports.
"Some years ago we favoured privatisation of airports. But unfortunately the experience has proved to be fraught with very grave risks. This experience should act as a wake-up call for all governments that that they have a very tough regulator in place," Director General and CEO of International Air Transport Association (IATA) Giovanni Bisignani told PTI in an interview here.
In this context, he referred to the airport privatisation experiences of the UK, Mexico, Hong Kong and some other nations where either the absence of a regulator or the regulator's "inefficiency" led the private operator to make huge profits by hiking user charges substantially and providing no benefits to the consumers.
The IATA chief's comments came weeks ahead of government's plans present the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority Bill in the Parliament during the second part of the on-going Budget Session.
06/04/07 PTI/The Hindu

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Categories: Airports Apr 2007, Foreign Apr 2007