ABSTRACT
The first and major part of this chapter considers the increasingly important topic of economic regulation. Airports are subject to other types of regulation, for example related to safety, security and the environment, but the focus here is just on the economic aspects of regulation. Also this does not cover state aid regulation, which within the EU context has been considered in Chapter 9. The chapter begins by assessing the rationale for airport regulation, linking this to airport competition issues which have been discussed in Chapter 9. The regulatory framework, which exists at various levels, is then introduced. This leads on to a discussion of the main types of economic regulation and the mechanisms related to these. This is then related to actual experience of regulation in different parts of the world.
