Airport’s Abuse of Dominant Position on Aeronautical Charges in Europe: a case law approach

The aim of this paper is to provide a European perspective of airports’ abuse of dominant position regarding airport charges. As airports have traditionally held a monopoly position in their respective geographical market, the EU member states have regulated the airport charges paid by airlines for aeronautical services. Nevertheless, the European Comission has received complaints about airports charges (especially with regard to airport charges rebate schemes). We intent to discuss the application of the European competition rules to airports. In order to access competition issues regarding airports the first step is to identify the relevant market by considering its product and a geographic dimension. We aim at describing the main approaches that have been used to define the relevant market regarding to airports and to access airports dominance. We also intend to discuss in this paper three selected case law in respect to airport charges and, for each case, present its background, specific legal framework applied, relevant market definition, dominance, and the airport’ abuse of dominant position assessment.