The costs of car parking at major Australian airports, and the fees they charge airlines per passenger could be cut under a new proposal by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

This is what the ACCC says.

While it seems straightforward, it also strikes at the heart of the Howard Government’s policy on airport privatisations, which was one of extracting massive prices from private consortiums for Australia’s gateway airports early this century in return for the right to screw the airlines and their customers for eternity.

Stand by for some fierce indignation from the airport owners at about a ‘great big theft’ of private investment benefits from airport investors facing the risk of losing their absolute pricing power.