Perth Airport Crowned Best Major Airport in Australia by ACCC

A Qantas 737-800 (Photo: Jordan Vuong from Perth, Australia [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)])

[ Airports ]February 25, 2020 8:16 pm ET

By Pete Ainsley

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) unveiled the Airport monitoring report in 2018. Perth Airport just became the best major airport in Australia for three years in a row according to ACCC.

ACCC has compared four major airports in the country, including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. The report surveyed both passengers and carriers. Perth Airport was the only airport to receive a “good” rating from carriers. The interviewees may rate Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Poor and Very Poor to the monitored airports.

As a result of the lower fees to the airlines, the operating profit from aeronautical operation fell by 19.2 percent to 75.7 million ($50 million USD). In the meantime, the airport needed to pay a higher cost for terminal four since taking back control from Qantas.

In response to the honor, Kevin Brown, CEO of Perth Airport said: “We have reached agreement on pricing with 25 out of the 26 airlines which operated at Perth Airport.”

“We have delivered reduced price for our airline partners while at the same time delivering improved services and greater efficiencies,” Brown added.

According to ACCC, the overall quality of service rating declined slightly compared to the previous years, but Perth Airport still received the highest overall rating among four airports.

In the meantime, the proportion of delayed departures was 16 percent at Perth. ACCC stated the on-time performance has worsened across the four airports, but mentioned the delays are outside of the airport’s control.

Four airports earned $863.5 million AUD ($570 million USD) in operating profit from aeronautical activities in 2018-19, an increase of 3.6 percent. The report showed the profits from aeronautical revenue were higher despite the lower growth in the number of passengers. The result was driven by the east coast airports with higher aeronautical revenue. This may illustrate the benefit of being a monopoly. ACCC also mentioned that car parking profit margins remain very high.