The Competition Council submits to public debate the commitments proposed by the National Company “Aeroporturi București” S.A. (CNAB), in order to remove the competition concerns that led to the initiation of the investigation regarding the limitation of market access of companies that manage IT applications through which taxis can be ordered from the airport.
CNAB decided that only the IT applications of taxi companies can run on the touch screen terminals within the premises of the Bucharest “Henri Coandă” International Airport. In this way, CNAB limited access to the touch screen terminals to companies that manage aggregator IT applications. In practice, customers could request transport services only from certain taxi companies that had IT applications installed on the touch screen terminals, not from aggregator companies that include the offer of several taxi drivers.
Through the proposed commitments, CNAB aims to ensure access to all interested operators within the airport, under transparent, non-discriminatory and predictable conditions.
Thus, in order to regulate the rental activity in a unified manner, CNAB undertakes only to identify and rent the spaces for the placement of touch-screen terminals, without intervening on the types of applications running on the respective touch-screen terminals. In addition, passenger transport services from the airport will no longer be limited to taxi transport (respectively to the IT applications of taxi companies), but will also include others, such as ordering through aggregator applications or ride-sharing applications. Also, the rental of spaces will be assigned exclusively through a public auction organized by the Romanian Commodity Exchange, and interested companies will be able to submit bids for multiple spaces, but they will only be assigned one space within the same auction procedure, in order to ensure the largest possible presence of companies active on the market and diversified services for passengers.
After analyzing the observations received, the Competition Council may request the modification of the proposed commitments and/or may decide to accept or reject the commitments. In case of acceptance of the commitments, they are monitored for a certain period, by the competition authority or by a company designated for this purpose. In case of failure to fulfill the commitments, CNAB may be sanctioned with a fine of up to 10% of its turnover. During the procedure, the Competition Council may reopen the investigation upon request or ex officio, if certain irregularities are found. The commitments proposed by CNAB can be consulted on the competition authority’s website.