The struggle between the operators engaged in ground handling at Sofia Airport, began to pull dirty linen to light that threaten to shake things not only at home, but also all the way to Brussels. Although it looks small, the Bulgarian market is not negligible. In 2012 the airport of the capital city handled nearly 3.5 million passengers, and every week it serviced around 550 flights to a total of 28,600 per year.
For both humans and machines services are needed – loading and unloading of baggage, cargo and mail, aircraft cleaning, crew administration, procedures against icing in winter, providing tractors, load control and the balance of the flying vehicle, as well as fuel charging … All of this is provided by three companies and it makes money. One of the global leaders in the industry – Swiss Swissport holds about 30 percent of the Bulgarian market through its company; Greek Goldear Handling holds about 25 percent, while the remaining share is the responsibility of the operator Sofia Airport JSC with the proviso that it included airplanes of Bulgaria Air which is servicing itself alone. Stagnant air market in recent years, however, and the withdrawal of some of the country’s airlines (Hungarian MALEV and Czech CSA) led to reduced revenues and attacks below the belt.
Last week Swissport surprisingly announced that it has filed two complaints with the Commission on Protection of Competition. They are for unfair trade and dumping pricing practices by Goldear Handling.
When you offer quality, it has its price. Do not get me wrong – we want competition. Yet we lost two customers because one of them was offered rates for its ground handling, which were 60 percent lower than ours, and to the other one the bid was six months free service. This I think is dumping, and thus we filed a complaint, said Mark Skinner – Senior Vice President Swissport for Northern Europe and board member of Swissport Bulgaria. He also said that in the meantime the Greek company is operating at a loss, and so its license should be revoked. Indeed, the report in the Commercial Register shows that the financial situation of Goldear Handling is not flourishing. In its last published accounts for 2011 it registered a loss of over 2 million levs, and in 2010 it was 962,000 levs in the red.
What is tranger in this case is something else. The company’s cost of raw materials in 2011 were 413 thousand levs but for external services were paid nearly 2.3 million levs, given that a year earlier on the same thing a four-fold smaller amount was spent. Where his money went to, we can only guess, but it will be interesting to see the report of Goldear Handling for 2012.
The BANKER
