Low-cost airline terminal in jeopardy

Private investment group looking to build an alternative, low-cost terminal at Copenhagen Airport accuses the government of standing in the way

A frustrated group of investors attempting to bring what they say would be air travel at a lower price to Denmark is taking the government to court.

The backers of the so-called Terminal A say obstruction by Trafikstyrelsen, the transportation authority, is getting in the way of open competition.

“We feel that we have been abused so badly during four years of negotiations that we have no other option than to go to court,” the leader of the Terminal A group, Flemming Hansen (Konservative), told Politiken newspaper. Hansen is a former transportation minister.

The company in charge of Kastrup, Københavns Lufthavne A/S, which has the state and an Australian private equity fund as major shareholders, has since 2008 refused to lease a piece of vacant land at Copenhagen Airport to the Terminal A group.

The competition authority, Konkurrencerådet, has called on the current transportation minister, Henrik Dam Kristensen (Socialdemokraterne), to change aviation laws to allow the terminal to open.

Kristensen rejected the idea in January, saying that regulations prevented the establishment of a competing terminal and that the Trafikstyrelsen was concerned about the security problems that may arise at a privately-owned terminal.

“I have no plans to change aviation security regulations,” Kristensen told Politiken. “Security regulations are serious and not something you simply change.”

Hansen called the actions of Trafikstyrelsen during the case “somewhat mysterious".

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