Australia’s biggest airports may be making more money than ever before, but they aren’t doing it by being friendly to travellers, according to a new report.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission annual Airport Monitoring Report released this week revealed Australian gateways are generating substantial revenue and profitable increases, but their level of service quality has dived.
Both Perth and Melbourne airports received the equal lowest quality of service rating of the airports during the year, while Brisbane Airport was the only monitored airport to achieve a rating of ‘good’.
Brisbane Airport is the only one of Australia’s biggest gateways to offer ‘good’ service.
Their overall service rating is based on ratings from airlines, passengers and objective indicators such as the number of washrooms, number of bag-drop and check-in kiosk facilities plus airport landside access facilities.
Sydney, Perth and Melbourne airports are all currently sitting between the ‘satisfactory’ and ‘good’ service levels.
Despite being below the ‘good margin’, Sydney’s Kingsford Smith levels picked up slightly compared to 2012/13, while Melboune’s Tullamarine have been on a steady decline since 2009/10.
“In fact, service quality at all monitored airports has declined over the past decade, despite higher unit revenues at all airports.”
Rod Sims, ACCC Chairman
Meanwhile, car parking continued to be a significant source of revenue for the airports during 2013‑14, and all airports increased their car parking revenue during the year.
Each airport, apart from Melbourne Airport, increased their car parking margin. Sydney Airport earned the highest car parking margin of the monitored airports.
Sydney’s Kingsford Smith earned the highest car parking margin of the four gateways.
Since the removal of price caps at monitored airports, the ACCC’s monitoring has found that airports have reported significant increases in real earnings, with some margin increases exceeding over 300 percent in real terms over that decade.
Each airport has, however, increased its aeronautical asset base in real terms since 2003/04.
These real percentage increases have ranged from 21.5 percent at Sydney Airport to 206.5 percent at Perth Airport. While acknowledging the lumpy nature of aeronautical investment, each airport also reported a larger level of capital expenditure as a proportion of aeronautical assets in 2013/14 than in 2003/04.