The regulator warns ANA that Decree-Law no. 254/2012 “clearly” establishes that airport service levels must be related to the value of airport taxes that are charged to passengers and that it has identified “non-compliances” and malfunctions at national airports.

Therefore, ANAC emphasises that there is a “clear need to review the agreement signed in 2014/2015 between ANA and users, air carriers and handlers“, to improve the services provided to passengers, starting from 1 April this year.

From the outset, the regulator says that ANA has presented “situations of systematic non-compliance”, especially with regard to the indicators of “delivery of the first baggage, upon arrival at Lisbon, Porto and Faro airports, and the delivery of the last baggage at Lisbon Airport".

Furthermore, within the scope of the audits carried out “on the baggage management system at Lisbon, Porto and Faro airports”, ANAC has been identifying “opportunities for improvement in infrastructure”.

Deterioration of services

All this happens while the same assessment of the quality of the service “by passengers has been deteriorating consecutively”, the regulator also emphasises, taking into account that “the number of passenger complaints has become more significant, in particularly with regard to waiting times at the RX”.

Finally, ANAC points out that the increases in airport tax values “have not been accompanied by upward revisions in service quality levels”, which reveals a “mismatch between the levels of fees applied and the quality of the service provided ”.

In response to ANAC, the concessionaire justifies the situation by stating that current service levels and respective metrics “are adequate to ensure correct representation and monitoring of processes and guarantee a good level of service to airlines and passengers”.

But the regulator emphasises that the agreement reached between ANA and users in 2014 and 2015 “is not of a lifetime nature, and must be changed”, in order to reflect the changes that have occurred, over time, at the airports managed by the concessionaire, Vinci group, especially “with regard to changes inherent to the applicable and current tariff structure, and increases in traffic and passengers”.