The Commission had proposed that the new rules should apply to airports with an annual traffic of more than one million passengers, but the European Parliament is in favor of five million passengers as a threshold or which accounted annually for more than 15% of the passenger movements in the Member State where it is located. This reflects a concern that the Directive as drafted would capture smaller airports who are not in a potentially market dominant position. The European Parliament’s decision means that the directive will affect 67 airports throughout the EU. Among these are two Romanian airports: „Henri Coanda“ (Bucuresti-Otopeni) and „Traian Vuia“ (Timisoara).
Under the new rules, all airports will be bound by common rules on provision of mutual information, transparency and the way airport charges may be collected. Airport managing bodies will be able to increase charges only with the purpose of pre-financing new infrastructure projects, and even then under strict conditions.
