Easyjet fails in court bid against Gatwick Airport

The low-cost carrier, Easyjet, was turned down by the Court of Appeal in London this week after they had asked them to look into the Civil Aviation Authority’s pricing regulation for Gatwick Airport. The court agreed with a verdict in June this year that the CAA did not need to review its pricing policy.

Easyjet have said the airport owners and regulators had a meeting that excluded airlines and resulted in the CAA raising the charge that the airport could charge per passenger to the carriers. Easyjet handle about 25 per cent of the passengers that use the airport and have calculated that they believe they will be overcharged by $75 million.

Lord Justice John Dyson said that he could not believe that airlines and particularly Easyjet had been treated wrongly in the decision by the CAA and would uphold the ruling of the previous court. Easyjet said in a statement that this charging would lead to their customers having up to 50 per cent more in taxes to travel from Gatwick in the near future. This does not include increased charges for when a new runway and terminal building is constructed in the future.

The new owners of the airport, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) have promised to stick to their word and will continue with $1 billion investment plan in the airport. Over the coming years this will include another runway and terminal, but for now they said they will start on making better use of the space in the check-in area.