When a public monopoly infrastructure asset is privatized, the columnist traces a reliable sequencing across three cases — Manila's NAIA under San Miguel Corp., London Heathrow after its 1987 privatization, and Frankfurt's Fraport — where fee increases arrive immediately while service or capacity improvements materialize only years later, if at all: "Historically, it's common for privatized airports to increase fees early in their tenure, but the success of such efforts ultimately depends on whether passengers see real improvements." NAIA's overnight parking fee jumped 300% (P300 to P1,200) at the same time its new operator promised to double capacity from 35 to 62 million passengers — capital projects requiring years, funded by fee revenue collected up front. The second, sharper claim is that a vague "reduce misuse/congestion" rationale for a fee hike, offered without supporting data, is itself a tell of extractive pricing rather than evidence-based operations design. NNIC justified NAIA's parking hike by claiming low old rates "inadvertently encouraged misuse of the airport's limited parking space" by non-travelers — a claim the columnist finds implausible given NAIA's poor accessibility and the presence of nearby commercial parking, and which NNIC never backed with data. The generalizable pattern for evaluating any privatized-monopoly pricing announcement: treat "this fee increase deters misuse" as a red flag rather than a justification whenever it isn't accompanied by usage data, because the same increase is equally well explained by revenue extraction toward a concession's committed payout — SMC's NAIA concession alone requires roughly P900 billion in payments over 15 years, against NAIA's 2023 revenue of about P12 billion. ## Source - [[20241002 Precious parking]] — bworldonline.com, October 2, 2024 — Marvin Tort (Static) — https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/10/03/625445/precious-parking/