Commentary Part 1 – Airports Schedule 10: Regulation of operators of dominant airports: transitional provision Section 77: Crown application
242.This section provides that Chapter 1 (other than sections 50 to 52 on obtaining information), Chapters 2 and Chapter 3 bind the Crown, subject to certain exceptions mentioned in or provided by the section. It also provides that Chapters 1 and 3 do not affect Her Majesty in her private capacity.
243.Subsection (5) provides that nothing in Chapters 1 and 3 prevents a person from requiring payment of, or recovering, charges in respect of services provided in the course of carrying out exempt Crown functions (as defined in subsection (12)), i.e. customs functions, immigration functions, police functions and other functions exempted by regulations, to the extent that such functions are carried out by or on behalf of the Crown.
244.Subsection (6) provides that if the operator of an airport area exercises overall responsibility for its management in the course of carrying out exempt Crown functions, the absence of a licence in respect of the airport area does not prevent charges being imposed in respect of services provided at another area in the same airport. It also removes the possibility of the CAA being required, in response to a request under section 7(2), to make a market power determination in respect of a core airport area operated by a person exercising exempt Crown functions; and disapplies section 14(4) so that any person carrying out exempt Crown functions is not to be treated as having applied for a licence in respect of the relevant airport area in the event of the area becoming a dominant area at a dominant airport.
245.Subsections (7) to (9) provide for services provided in an exempt Crown airport area to be excluded from the scope of economic regulation. “Exempt Crown airport area” is defined in subsection (10), which provides amongst other things that the area must be part of a small airport (an airport where the number of passenger movements did not exceed 5 million during the previous calendar year or the airport was not open to commercial traffic) and that it must be explicitly excluded from the scope of economic regulation through regulations made by the Secretary of State.