Europe’s map is not just its capitals and hubs: it is a constellation of cultures and communities. It is a simple fact that many of these communities, industrial towns, university centres, and touristic villages depend on reliable, affordable air links to the rest of Europe and beyond – provided by their regional airports.
For them, the nearest airport is a lifeline and their sole link to the world. If the EU is serious about cohesion, competitiveness and the green transition for aviation, then it must recognise the strategic value of regional airports in ensuring no citizen is left behind.
This means the EU must also recognise that these airports, which provide such essential connections, are not often in a position to be profitable and self-funding. This is the role of State aid: to ensure citizens across Regional communities are not isolated from education, employment, culture and the opportunities that come from being connected.
This is why ACI EUROPE continues to raise alarms about the need to extend EU guidelines that allow well-governed State aid to small airports. Those guidelines are at risk in an ongoing European Commission evaluation.
Here is the policy rub: the EU’s current State Aid Aviation Guidelines assume that small airports will adjust to become financially viable over time. The reality is that many will not be able to, through no fault of their own. High fixed costs, lumpy seasonality and airline market power in route development negotiations act against them. That is why extending the possibility for operating state aid beyond 2027 for airports up to 1 million passengers, with sensible intensity thresholds and guardrails, is not market distortion. It is the targeted correction of a structural market failure that preserves connectivity possibilities where the market alone undersupplies it.
The fiscal scale is modest; the payoff is large. Airports up to 1 million passengers account for only about 2.5% of total EU traffic – so the envelope of potential operating support is limited, precise, and efficient: the social and economic returns are concentrated in exactly the places EU cohesion policy is meant to serve. Put differently: a relatively small public outlay secures links that keep regions investable, stem brain drain, and maintain equal access to essential services.
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Source: Why Local Airports Matter More Than Ever | Euractiv
For simple politicians, it is easy to think in simple solutions: on paper having huge airports (owned by a huge company with huge lobbying power) servicing centrally will seem more efficient. With connections, it is not about efficiency, it is about quantity – seeing that as many points are connected is more important than that the existing connections have huge throughput.
Robin Edgar
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