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Commission issues draft report on Auckland International Airport

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30-Apr-2013 The Commerce Commission has today released its draft of a report to the Ministers of Commerce and Transport on the effectiveness of the information disclosure regulatory regime under Part 4 of the Commerce Act in relation to Auckland International Airport.

The Commission is required to provide its report to the Ministers in respect of each of the regulated airports as soon as practicable after any new price for a regulated service has been set. Auckland Airport set new prices on 7 June 2012.

"Our draft finding is that information disclosure regulation has had a positive influence on Auckland Airport's behaviour. Notably, it has been effective in limiting Auckland Airport's ability to extract excessive profits," said Commerce Commission Deputy Chair Sue Begg.

"Auckland Airport has made a number of positive changes to its price setting approach during the short time information disclosure regulation has been in place," said Ms Begg. "Auckland Airport's expected return of 8% per annum for the 2013-2017 pricing period, is just within our estimated range of a reasonable return of 7.1% to 8.0%. Auckland Airport has also improved the way it sets prices to collect revenue for different services and from different consumers. Quality generally reflects the demands of airlines and passengers, and innovation levels seem appropriate," said Ms Begg.

The review does not make any recommendations about whether regulation other than information disclosure should apply to Auckland Airport (or whether information disclosure should continue to apply). This is outside of the scope of the review required by the legislation.

The full draft report is available on the Section 56g Reports page. Written submissions are welcome. Submissions should be sent to regulation.branch@comcom.govt.nz by 5pm on 31 May 2013. Cross-submissions are due by 5pm on 14 June 2013. The Commission's final report to the Ministers about Auckland Airport has a target completion date of 31 July 2013. The report for Christchurch Airport will be completed later this year. The final report for Wellington Airport was completed in February 2013.