Aviation chief criticises rules that lead to legal actions

THE HEAD of the Commission for Aviation Regulation, Cathal Guiomard, has strongly criticised the regulatory system that has led to an unusually high number of cases being taken against the aviation regulator in Ireland, particularly by Ryanair.

Writing in the commission’s 2010 annual report, which is due to be published today, Mr Guiomard says that while the UK airport regulator has been challenged once in the court in 25 years, the Irish aviation regulator has been subject to eight judicial review challenges in the last 10 years, seven of which were taken by Ryanair.

He argues recourse to the courts should be “very exceptional”. Legal costs were running into millions of euro, he added.

“Rather than concentrating on price regulation, much of our work is now taken up with legal issues, with virtually all cases reaches the hearing stage. This is the case with regulatory bodies in general in Ireland, which are spending more and more time in court.”

While the first judicial review challenge against the commission was launched by Aer Rianta in 2001, the seven subsequent review challenges have been taken by Ryanair.

The commission, which is 10 years in existence, has won seven of the eight cases taken against it.

Mr Guiomard also questioned the efficacy of some EU regulations, suggesting existing regulations and new rules should be subject to “rigorous scrutiny”.

The regulator also defends the commission’s approach to Dublin Airport’s Terminal 2, arguing that its approach in the 2007 interim review on the matter has “stood the test of time. Following careful analysis of the DAA’s investment plan, the commission concluded that the proposed T2 was larger than might be necessary. This judgment has not been shown to have been mistaken.”

Rather than pass on the investment costs into the price cap, the regulator says the commission allowed the DAA to recover the costs of the investment with a number of caveats, including the requirement that charges would increase only after the facility had been built, and that users would be protected from having to pay should T2 prove to be larger than was needed.

The 2010 annual report shows the commission had an operating surplus of €268,570 at the end of the year, compared to a surplus of €1.1 million the previous year, mainly as a result of a fall in levy income.

The commission received 5,132 requests for assistance and information from the public in 2010 – a 105 per cent increase on 2009 – mainly as a result of the volcanic ash crisis in April and May last year.

An update on the response to the ash cloud crisis is due to be published by the commission within the next month.