ACCC to reject Perth Airport car plan

The competition watchdog has flagged its intention to reject a proposal by a group of car rental companies to enter into collective negotiations with Perth Airport.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said Perth Airport is using a competitive request for proposal process to allocate counter space and parking bays to car rental companies. A group of car rental companies wants to collectively bargain with the airport about the licence terms and conditions for counter space and parking bays.

The members of the proposed bargaining group - Hertz, Thrifty, Avis, Budget and Europcar - all currently offer car rental services at the airport. These businesses lodged a notification with the ACCC earlier this month so they could collectively bargain to assist them in their negotiations with the airport.

However, the ACCC today said it had received submissions opposing the collective bargaining notification from Redspot, a national car rental company that offers car rental services at the airport, and Westralia Airports Corporation, the operator of Perth Airport.

Redspot argued that the proposed collective bargaining arrangements would put Redspot at a competitive disadvantage. Westralia Airports argued that collective bargaining would prevent it from allocating airport space by means of an efficient competitive auction.

"The ACCC is concerned that collective bargaining by the group of car rental companies could undermine the Request for Proposal process being run by Westralia Airports. In this context, the ACCC has moved quickly to prevent
collective negotiations from taking place while the ACCC further considers the notification," ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said today.

Interested parties now have an opportunity to request that the ACCC hold a conference in relation to the draft notice, and also to provide further information to the ACCC to assist its consideration of whether to issue a final notice objecting to the collective bargaining notification.