IACA Speaks Out on European Slot Plans

The International Air Carrier Association (IACA), a recognised voice for the industry’s leisure carriers, has reacted with dismay to this week’s proposal from the European Commission to revise the rules for slot allocation at EU airports, as part of its ‘better airport’ package. The Commission has described the current system of allocating take-off slots as “inefficient” and therefore some of the continent’s busiest airports are not being used as they should, something, it says, it simply cannot afford.

“The current system is simply not flexible enough to cope with out increasingly crowded sky,” the European Commission said in a statement. “These new rules will make it easier for airlines to buy and sell slot capacity, making for a more efficient slot allocation on the ground. This will help to ensure that slots are filled by the airlines which can make the best use of them.” The new system includes the legalisation of secondary slot trading.

IACA claims the system does not support the interests of the leisure carriers and the slot proposal will wipe out the most popular flights from the system, hitting tourist destinations and passengers hard. The industry body is particularly concerned about plans to redefine the term a ‘series of slots’. Today, airport slots are allocated to airlines in a block of five slots enabling airlines to match their offer of flights with seasonal demand.

However, if the Commission’s proposal becomes law, the length of a block will be increased to 15 slots in a series in the summer and 10 slots in the winter. These longer series are less flexible and, according to IACA, will result in “an absurd and impossible choice for airlines: either fly the additionally required flights empty for several weeks in order to be entitled to grandfather rights or give up the highly efficient fully-loaded flights altogether”.

IACA claims that this is “economically (and also ecologically) unsustainable,” and will mean that certain tourist regions, particularly in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, will be deprived of some air services. These countries are already under pressure because of the current financial crisis.

“With this proposal, the European Commission is attacking an efficient way of flying and not analysing the consequences,” said Koen Vermeir, Director of Aeropolitical Affairs, IACA. “Without today’s legal certainty to maintain historical rights for a series of 5 slots, IACA airlines will no longer fly to tourist destinations that can only be served economically during the peak season. If IACA airlines are forced to give up these routes, no one else will pick these up and if the Commission is not careful, they could effectively be wiping out the most popular flights from the system.”

In an attempt to avoid problems, the Commission is suggesting local rules that would permit airports in tourist destinations to continue protecting grandfather rights with a series of five slots. However, as IACA notes, an air route has an origin and a destination and local rules are insignificant without the same slot protection in the origin airports located in northern or central Europe.