By Jacob Saulwick TRANSPORT
SYDNEY AIRPORT earns more money per passenger and provides worse service than any airport in the country, the consumer watchdog has found.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's annual airport monitoring report typically features criticism of service at Sydney. But yesterday's report was particularly harsh and went close to suggesting the airport was abusing its monopoly.
According to the commission's figures, Sydney Airport made more than $14 a passenger in the 2009-10 financial year. That was an 8 per cent increase on the previous year and comfortably the highest margin in the country.
But the airport also recorded the worst ranking on the commission measure of service quality, which takes into account the views of passengers, airlines, and the customs and quarantine officers that work there.
The commission chairman, Graeme Samuel, said Sydney Airport stood out compared to other airports that had responded to concerns about service quality.
''The airport's monopoly position, the airlines' ongoing dissatisfaction with the service they receive, as well as increasing prices and profits over time, all point to Sydney Airport earning monopoly profits from the services it provides to airlines,'' the report said.
The heaviest criticism of Sydney Airport was for the services it provided to airlines. The availability of check-in counters was poor, particularly in peak periods. The standards of baggage facilities, parking and runway control were also poor.
''The issues that the airlines are concerned about … the broad report on those is that they are not good enough,'' Mr Samuel told the Herald.
Sydney Airport also has the most expensive short-term car parking in the country. The charge for four hours of parking - $52 - easily clears the price at Melbourne ($36), Brisbane ($22), Adelaide ($14) and Perth ($9.80).
The airport made $95 million from parking last financial year, against $27 million in costs. At $68 million, the margin Sydney Airport skims from car parking ranks second only to Melbourne.
Sydney Airport, owned by MAP Airports Group, had attempted to pre-empt the commission's findings by commissioning its own analysis questioning the methodology of the regulator.
In particular, Sydney Airport is critical of the commission for not disclosing how many airlines participated in its survey.
But Mr Samuel dismissed the concerns, saying that the commission was delivering simple price monitoring work and not conducting academic analysis.
''If I was Sydney Airport, where year after year after year … this has been going on for five years … they are being ranked the poorest in terms of quality of service, rather than ask a couple of academics what they think, frankly I'd be asking the customers,'' he said.
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