Dr. Eef DelhayeTransport & Mobility Leuven ‐ KU Leuven
Unbundling – an economist view
Braunschweig, March 2018
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Outline of this talk
Unbundling – definition and background Some non‐ATC examples Unbundling within ATC?
Example of tower control Other services?
Conclusions
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Unbundling
“Unbundling a product or service into stand‐alone offerings that were not previously viable to sell separately”= “trade in tasks”
Where? Markets that rely on products with multiple underutilized and/or highly priced
components that are integrated for the purpose of reducing distribution costs–> ATM as natural monopoly due to high fixed costs / vertical integrated supplier ‐> delivers “a set of services”
When? Enabling technology ‐> remote towers, less ground based technologies,… Customers mind‐set shifts ‐> privatisation of airports (differences in need) Platforms ‐> centralised services
Why? Easiest way to introduce competition Cost reductions Quality improvements Customer focus Increased transparency!
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Unbundling – other experiences
Typical monopolistic state‐owned industries‐ Rail ‐ Telecom‐ Energy
‐> (apart maybe for rail ): decrease in prices, increase in quality/services
Media (technology driven)‐ Newspapers ‐> Craiglists, Monster, Topics,…‐ CDs ‐> iTunes ‐> Spotify‐ SMS ‐> WhatsApp/Messenger
‐> costs savings due to much lower/no infrastructure costs
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Unbundling ‐ ANS
Air Navigation ServiceS = bundle of services‐> in phases
‐Separation terminal air traffic services (mostly documented)‐Unbundling of ATM support services which are not monopolistic in nature nor have large network effects (MET, AIS, CNS)
‐> competition INmarket‐More specialised ATM activities, including contingency services
‐> closer cooperation ‐> increased interoperability
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Tower control market ‐ outline
Interesting case Some countries experimented already with tendering It matters as it represents close to 20% of ANSP costs (1,4 Billion Euro in 2009) No need for technology change For airports with small and high intensity of operations
Research questions Benefits of competition in tower control Current status and experience Conditions for a successful market opening Understanding institutions via a game tree Conclusions
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Research questions
What was the experience in different countries up to now? What are the necessary conditions for a market in tower control services to develop?
How do “institutions” influence the market outcome? Can we quantify the benefits of tower control liberalisation?
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ACR’s (Sweden) estimate of tower control cost savings through competition
• Cost reduction Anecdotal evidence for Spain, Germany ..that costs can be reduced strongly by using better
organization, better technologies, lower pay for ATCO’s… Strong evidence for Sweden where costs were cut by
• Transparency : • Many regional airports are heavily subsidized ‐one of the mechanisms is cross‐
subsidisation of tower control by other ANSP services• The best way to have transparent accounts is a bidding process.
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Experience up to now Implementation Experience in UK, Spain , Germany, Sweden and Norway Refusing implementation is also interesting but more difficult to study
UK All airports open except HeathrowIncumbent = private company3 out of 11 airports left incumbentMost airports renegotiated contract
Spain Smaller airports open12 towers operated by newcomersStill large inefficiencies in bigger airports
Germany Regional airport towers opened to competitionAt least 14 towers left the incumbent
Sweden Smaller airports liberalizedAt least 17 towers left the incumbent
Norway Tender for second Oslo airport
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UK experience is documented best UK has a competition tradition (“institutions matter”) Civil Aviation Authority is responsible for implementing cost‐efficiency
targets (EU‐SES regulation for 7 largest airports) – that can be avoided if there is “enough” competition for tower services
There was no legal monopoly for tower services but the incumbent did not like competitors
Ownership of equipment (incumbent, airport) was not sufficient to block competition
High share of ATCO’s with very generous terms (salary, pensions) was also not blocking the market opening – as they were employed by the newcomers at unchanged conditions, new ATCO’s had less beneficial conditions
Almost all airports that did not organize a tender renegotiated their contract with the incumbent supplier and this may be as important as the tendering itself – so the threat of competition is important
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What are conditions for a market to develop?
• Who pays for tower control and does cost control really matter for the airport? Airports can be private, public or mixed Evidence (Adler & Liebert, 2014) that private airports will always strive for lower
costs and that also other airports strive for lower costs when airport encounters strong competition from other airports
Problem of cross subsidies
• Is the bid taker likely to observe the procedure and select the lowest bid?
Legal battles by incumbent (in many sectors as it is important)
• Are there important economics of scale involved? • For one tower: yes there are economics of scale • Combining several towers? • Vertical: what is role of coordination between tower and en‐route control and
between tower and internal airport operation?
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IncumbentANSP ATC union
Member state
airport
EU
Member state
accept
Incumbentproposes
Incumbent
airport
In house
Newcomer
Airport tenders
Not accept
Directives
No threat
No threat
Threat
Threat
D
Allowsmarket
No marketallowed
C
Negociationwithincumbent
AIC
AIN
BNCC
BNNC
BNNN
BNCN
BHCC
BHNC
BHCN
BHNN
BIN
BIC
Game – tree for institutional analysis: mapping of the decision process
START HERE
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Elements of the game tree: Agents, their strategies and objective functions
• ATC union: defend privileges (cfr. ACCHANGE results)• Incumbent ANSP: keep market• Newcomer: obtain market• Airport: reduce costs if private and facing competition• Member state: depends on institutions (competition tradition?) and on power of unions
• EU: max welfare of all users
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Solution of the game 1
Starting left sideIncumbent and ANSP will always lobby governmentIf member state decides not to open : game stops
If member state decides to open: airport can start by negotiating and if it does not obtain better conditions, it can open the market
So outcome can be
a) renegotiation (saving transaction costs – important for smaller airports)
Or
b) tender, then newcomers and in‐ house enter the game
If newcomers and in‐house risk do win the bid, there will be lobbying by incumbent and union
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Solution of the game 2
SOLUTION
If information on pay‐offs (costs of different suppliers) is known by all players, the incumbent will be forced to bid the cost of the newcomer or in‐house minus epsilon (Bertrand type of equilibrium).– union will gets its share for the existing ATCO’s
If information on pay‐offs (costs of different suppliers) is more uncertain, this will mainly benefit the incumbent and the union who have an information advantage and can use a smaller hedge on costs
If game is repeated over and over again, building a reputation counts as this allows to make more credible threats.‐ Important for unions to be “tough” ‐ For incumbent, this may be different as not cooperating with a newcomer (through its en route services) may end up in organizing competition for en‐route services too.
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And what about the other “services”
There is some experience, but less documented + case seems less clear than for tower control. Examples of training, aeronautical information (Jeppesen, SITA and ARINC) CNS, MET, AIS are the usual suspects, but literature focusses on tower control
EC (2013): “However support services such as meteorology, navigation and surveillance services are more practical propositions. There are many companies inside and outside the ATM world who could offer such services…”EC (2015) “ Traditionally, all ATM services have been bundled into one monopoly provider”…” The Commission is of the opinion that market mechanisms should be introduced to increase efficiency in the provision of support services”…” The EC pursue the separation and market opening of certain of these support services…”
Questions: ‐ How much would each of these services cost and how much would they
save if not produced in‐house? (cf. MET costs next slide….)‐ Less clear split between en route and TANS of the value created by COM
and SUR‐ No literature on NAV cf. no operational staff needed‐ Within the game: who would be the driver? The ANSPs?
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MET costs (000’s euros) in 2014
ANSP Country MET outsourced ANSP Country MET in‐house
AENA Spain 26,196 Albcontrol Albania 524 ANS CR Czech Republic 2,664 Austro control Austria 21,339 ARMATS Armenia 0 Belgocontrol Belgium 11,215 Avinor Norway 2,415 BULATSA Bulgaria 6,941
DCAC Cyprus Cyprus 4,353 Croatia control Croatia 5,244 DFS Germany 0 ENAV(+ITAF) Italy 26,571 DHMI Turkey 24,494 Finavia Finland 7,185 DSNA France 86,590 Hungarocontrol Hungary 2,973 EANS Estonia 209 LFV Sweden 1,530 HCAA Greece 7,959 LGS Latvia 1,429
IAA Ireland 8,098 M‐NAV FYR Macedonia 900
LPS Slovak Republic 2,619 MoldATSA Moldova 1,231
LVNL Netherlands 8,611 ROMATSA Romania 10,187 MATS Malta 751 SMATSA Serbia & Montenegro 5,316 MUAC International 0 UkATSE Ukraine 1,902 NATS UK 583
NAV Portugal Portugal 5,346 NAVIAIR Denmark 0
Oro Navigacija Lithuania 602 PANSA Poland 8,494
SkyGuide Switzerland 13,673 Slovenia Control Slovenia 1,613
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Conclusions on unbundling
1. Competition for tower control only exists in a few countries – it can be organized in all member states –EU can help to make this mandatory, let the lowest cost firm get the market ‐‐‐ but experience in other sectors (electricity) shows this can take a long time to operationalize as it are the member states that have to implement it.
2.When tower control was liberalized, there was important resistance of unions and incumbent and these parties have strong bargaining power in some countries. Here the EU can come in and guarantee a European Market.
3.Crucial in the process are the airports themselves, this is an opportunity for them to reduce ATC costs (if they have to pay them) but not all of them are interested in cost control
4 . Other ANSP services (MET,CNS..) can also be outsourced, but this is different because it are no longer the airports who decide but the ANSP itself. The ANSP faces less competition than an airport and will be less motivated to introduce competition