Brussels, 5 May 2023
The European Commission has launched today a public consultation inviting all interested parties to comment on its draft proposal to prolong the application of the 2014 Guidelines on State aid to airports and airlines.
The Guidelines allow Member States to grant, subject to certain conditions, aid to regional airports with less than 3 million passengers a year, with a view to becoming cost-covering. The Guidelines set a ten-year transition period during which such aid can be declared compatible with the internal market. The transitional period expires on 4 April 2024.
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly the resulting health and travel restrictions, the European aviation sector has faced a major crisis. The energy crisis resulting from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has further impacted the sector, notably by significantly increasing the energy costs of airport operators. In particular, regional airports have been facing lower revenues and higher costs, which had an adverse impact on their profitability and could lead to closures, which in turn may negatively affect connectivity across the EU.
In view of these exceptional circumstances, the Commission intends to prolong the transitional period during which Member States can grant aid to cover the operating costs of regional airports. In June 2022, the Commission launched a call for evidence on this proposed revision on the Better Regulation Portal: 28 stakeholder contributions were received between 23 June and 21 July 2022.
The Commission is now proposing to prolong the transition period by three years (i.e. until 4 April 2027), without any other changes to the Guidelines. Such extension of the transitional period should allow regional airports, which have suffered from the coronavirus pandemic and the energy crisis and would, as a result, not be cost-covering by April 2024, to become profitable by April 2027.
All interested parties, in particular national authorities and regional airport operators, can submit their views on the proposed prolongation in any official EU language from 5 May until 5 June 2023. The Commission will consider the comments received, with a view to prolong the existing rules in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Source – EU Commission