Airport, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Legislation, Transport

This is implementing the EU directive concerning airport fees, more specifically the process of approval of them. According to the directive, aviation firms have to be informed of new fee rates four months before they come in force. The approval process is so long that the airport might not be able to react in time to market changes and an aviation firm may decide not to fly from Tallinn Airport anymore.

The aim of the change is to provide an extra guarantee to aviation firms that prices are determined for everyone at the same conditions.

The principles of the directive have to be implemented on all EU airports that service over 5 million passengers a year or that are the biggest airport in the member state.

Estonia applied to change the directive so that it would not be implemented on airports with passenger number below 5 million but was not supported.

Prime minister Andrus Ansip said at government press conference that although he has never criticised EU directives that have been adopted, he is not satisfied with this one. “I believe that it facilitates competition to some extent but causes excessive administrative burden for the Tallinn Airport which I do not think is justified,” Ansip said.