General overview of Rome airport management. Airport management practices can be distinguished from two different perspectives. Firstly, an entity can manage airports as an integrated network. On the contrary, airports can be managed by an autonomous entity that is responsible for a low number of airports.
Secondly, airport authorities can be owned either by public institutions (which are associated to different territorial grounds), by private firms or a mix of both. These practices have a wide range of effects on the ability of an airport authority to attract the most convenient airlines for it. In addition to this, any competitive airline strategy depends fundamentally on airport access.
In this way, Rome airport management trends to have effects on airline and airport competition.Airline liberalization has been followed by an increasing number of countries since United States (US) government deregulate its domestic market in 1978. Although international services are still highly regulated (except in some cases, such as the intra- European routes), it can be said that travelers enjoy currently of a greater choice of alternatives to chose, a higher service frequency and lower prices.
There is a consensus that the achievement, maintenance or increase of these benefits in the post- liberalization period depends fundamentally on the existence of an effective competition on the route. In this way, there is a concern related to the scale advantages of major carriers due mainly to airport dominance.In addition, commercialization (and in many cases privatization) is becoming a general trend in the airport industry in the sense that airports are increasingly run as commercial business and not as public service organizations. This new scenario has brought opportunities for airport competition and so for further efficiency gains.Most airports in the (EU), like Rome airports, have been traditionally considered as public service organizations. Major international airports were under national government ownership,whereas regional airports were under national, regional or local government control.
On the other hand, airports were managed either together as a national group or at an individual level. Airports have not escaped from privatization policies implemented in the last decades. Hence, since 1980s, and particularly in the recent years, a range of different airport ownership types have arisen due to the different historical and political approaches of EU countries so that it is possible to find any type of airport ownership model in this area. This fact makes of great interest to study the EU case, taking into account that airport finance and airline access to airports follow common features all over the world with the important exception of US. .
By: stefano sandano
