IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaitra/v21y2012icp50-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Australian airport regulation: Exploring the frontier

Author

Listed:
  • Littlechild, Stephen C.

Abstract

In 2002 Australia removed its price freeze on major airports and instituted light-handed regulation including price monitoring. Internationally, this policy is at the frontier. In general it has worked well but there are concerns that it is ineffective in protecting against windfall gains for airports, that investment incentives are a weak link, that Sydney Airport has deferred investment and let service quality fall, and that airlines are still vulnerable to airport market power. These concerns do not justify re-imposition of price control but they require a method for addressing them. Airlines have proposed independent dispute resolution. Experience elsewhere suggests that concerns about this approach are unjustified, and that it would take light-handed regulation forward.

Suggested Citation

  • Littlechild, Stephen C., 2012. "Australian airport regulation: Exploring the frontier," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 50-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:21:y:2012:i:c:p:50-62
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2011.12.017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969699711001396
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2011.12.017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Doucet, Joseph & Littlechild, Stephen, 2009. "Negotiated settlements and the National Energy Board in Canada," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4633-4644, November.
    2. Stephen Littlechild, 2009. "Stipulated settlements, the consumer advocate and utility regulation in Florida," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 96-109, February.
    3. Littlechild, Stephen, 2009. "The bird in hand: Stipulated settlements in the Florida electricity sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 276-287, September.
    4. Schuster, Dominic, 2009. "Australia's approach to airport charges: The Sydney Airport experience," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 121-126.
    5. Littlechild, Stephen, 2012. "The process of negotiating settlements at FERC," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 174-191.
    6. Zhongmin Wang, 2004. "Settling Utility Rate Cases: An Alternative Ratemaking Procedure," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 141-163, September.
    7. Productivity Commission, 2006. "Review of Price Regulation of Airports Services," Inquiry Reports, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia, number 40.
    8. Armstrong, Mark & Doyle, Chris & Vickers, John, 1996. "The Access Pricing Problem: A Synthesis," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 131-150, June.
    9. Starkie, David, 2002. "Airport regulation and competition," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 63-72.
    10. King, Stephen P. & Maddock, Rodney, 1999. "Light-handed regulation of access in Australia: negotiation with arbitration," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, March.
    11. Littlechild, Stephen C., 2012. "German airport regulation: Framework agreements, civil law and the EU Directive," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 63-75.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kratzsch, Uwe & Sieg, Gernot, 2012. "No need to regulate airports with predominantly non-aeronautical revenues," European Transport \ Trasporti Europei, ISTIEE, Institute for the Study of Transport within the European Economic Integration, issue 52, pages 1-7.
    2. Littlechild, Stephen, 2018. "Economic regulation of privatised airports: Some lessons from UK experience," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 114(PA), pages 100-114.
    3. Arblaster, Margaret, 2016. "Negotiate-arbitrate regulation of airport services: Twenty years of experience in Australia," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 27-38.
    4. Kistler, Beat & Trischler, Jakob & Lohmann, Gui, 2018. "Passenger representation within the light-handed regulation – Insights from the Australian air transport market," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 106-115.
    5. Xiao, Yibin & Fu, Xiaowen & Zhang, Anming, 2016. "Airport capacity choice under airport-airline vertical arrangements," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 298-309.
    6. Christine Brandstätt & Gert Brunekreeft & Nele Friedrichsen, 2013. "The Need for More Flexibility in the Regulation of Smart Grids – Stakeholder Involvement," Bremen Energy Working Papers 0013, Bremen Energy Research.
    7. Trischler, Jakob & Lohmann, Gui, 2018. "Monitoring quality of service at Australian airports: A critical analysis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 63-71.
    8. Littlechild, Stephen, 2018. "Regulation and the nature of competition," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 211-223.
    9. Michael Brandau & Christoph Endenich & Andreas Hoffjan & Florian Müller, 2014. "Zum Einfluss der Entgeltregulierung auf die Unternehmenssteuerung–Eine empirische Analyse europäischer Großflughäfen," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 66(3), pages 242-268, May.
    10. Lohmann, Gui & Trischler, Jakob, 2017. "Licence to build, licence to charge? Market power, pricing and the financing of airport infrastructure development in Australia," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 28-37.
    11. Nele Friedrichsen & Christine Brandstätt & Gert Brunekreeft, 2014. "The need for more flexibility in the regulation of smart grids – stakeholder involvement," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 261-275, February.
    12. Zhang, Yahua & Sampaio, Breno & Fu, Xiaowen & Huang, Zhibin, 2018. "Pricing dynamics between airline groups with dual-brand services," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 46-59.
    13. Yang, Hangjun & Fu, Xiaowen, 2015. "A comparison of price-cap and light-handed airport regulation with demand uncertainty," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 122-132.
    14. Arblaster, Margaret, 2014. "The design of light-handed regulation of airports: Lessons from experience in Australia and New Zealand," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 27-35.
    15. Kivits, Robbert & Charles, Michael B., 2015. "Aviation planning policy in Australia: Identifying frames of reference to support public decision making," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 102-111.
    16. Arblaster, Margaret & Hooper, Paul, 2015. "Light handed regulation–Can it play a role in the developing world?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 32-41.
    17. Andrzej T. Szablewski, 2018. "Kolejny etap ewolucji koncepcji i praktyki regulacji ekonomicznej," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 2, pages 49-72.
    18. Brown, Richard S., 2016. "Lobbying, political connectedness and financial performance in the air transportation industry," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 61-69.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bordignon, Stephen & Littlechild, Stephen, 2012. "The Hunter Valley access undertaking: Elements of a negotiated settlement," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 179-187.
    2. Chakravorty, Shourjo, 2015. "A study of the negotiated-settlement practice in regulation: Some evidence from Florida," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 12-18.
    3. Andrzej T. Szablewski, 2018. "Kolejny etap ewolucji koncepcji i praktyki regulacji ekonomicznej," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 2, pages 49-72.
    4. Stephen Littlechild, 2011. "Regulation, customer protection and customer engagement," Working Papers EPRG 1119, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    5. Littlechild, Stephen, 2012. "The process of negotiating settlements at FERC," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 174-191.
    6. Littlechild, Stephen, 2018. "Regulation and the nature of competition," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 211-223.
    7. Littlechild, Stephen C., 2012. "German airport regulation: Framework agreements, civil law and the EU Directive," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 63-75.
    8. Stephen Littlechild, 2012. "Merchant and regulated transmission: theory, evidence and policy," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 308-335, December.
    9. Stephen Littlechild, 2016. "Contrasting Developments in UK Energy Regulation: Retail Policy and Consumer Engagement," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 118-132, June.
    10. Stephen Littlechild, 2006. "Stipulations, the consumer advocate and utility regulation in Florida+," Working Papers EPRG 0615, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    11. Davies, Ryan J. & Hevert, Kathleen T., 2020. "Stay-out adjustments and multi-year regulatory rate plans," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 105-114.
    12. Yang, Hangjun & Fu, Xiaowen, 2015. "A comparison of price-cap and light-handed airport regulation with demand uncertainty," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 122-132.
    13. Biggar, Darryl, 2022. "Seven outstanding issues in energy network regulation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    14. Havyatt, David, 2022. "Toward consumer-centric energy network regulation: Australia's experience," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Joseph Doucet & Stephen Littlechild, 2006. "Negotiated Settlements: The development of economic and legal thinking," Working Papers EPRG 0604, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    16. Eskesen, Anita, 2021. "A contract design perspective on balancing the goals of utility regulation," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    17. Stephen Littlechild, 2012. "Regulation and Customer Engagement," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    18. Lohmann, Gui & Trischler, Jakob, 2017. "Licence to build, licence to charge? Market power, pricing and the financing of airport infrastructure development in Australia," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 28-37.
    19. Vogelsang, Ingo, 2000. "Regulation of Access to the Telecommunications Network of New Zealand: A Review of the Literature," Working Paper Series 3931, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    20. Littlechild, Stephen, 2009. "The bird in hand: Stipulated settlements in the Florida electricity sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 276-287, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:21:y:2012:i:c:p:50-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-air-transport-management/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.