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The Commerce Commission welcomes the High Court’s judgment on appeals brought by New Zealand Airports Association Incorporated and Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch International Airports. These appeals challenged the 2023 changes to the Input Methodology rules for airports.

The Court declined the appeals and found in the Commission’s favour on all three grounds of appeal  The Commission has committed to consider whether amendments are required to address technical errors that the airports had identified during the appeals.

General Manager for Infrastructure Regulation, Andy Burgess, said the ruling supports the Commission’s role in providing clarity and certainty around the rules governing airport pricing, service quality, and transparency.  

“The framework ensures regulated airports can achieve a reasonable return on their investments, while safeguarding consumers from excessive charges for these services.”  

Input Methodologies set how key financial and operational elements are calculated to assess reasonable prices and returns for regulated businesses. For airports these rules apply to key airport services like aircraft take-off and landing, which don’t face direct competition. 

The Commission updated the Input Methodology rules in 2023 to reflect changes in market conditions, including the impact of Covid-19. These updates were made after extensive consultation with the industry. 

One of the airports’ grounds of appeal was that some calculations underlying the Input Methodologies contained technical errors. The Commission accepted that these calculation errors occurred. The Commission will consider amending the Input Methodologies to address the errors.  

Other proceedings before the Courts related to this matter are still to be heard and may have material impact. The Commission will consider these in due course.