The 48,000 annual slots at Paris Orly Airport available after the demise of Air Lib will be redistributed by Cohor, the association which co-ordinates 250,000 take-off and landing slots at Orly.
The French transport ministry says 40%, or 19,200 slots, will be attributed to airlines already at Orly, including EasyJet, which requested 20,000 slots in 2001.
Another 40% will be attributed to "new entrants on a first-come, first-serve basis", the French transport ministry says. However, an airline already operating from Orly can also be considered a new entrant if it wants to operate a maximum of two flights a day using four slots to a European Union destination served by fewer than three carriers.
France is looking into the legality of giving priority to the allocation of these slots to airlines which undertake to employ some of the 3,200 ex-Air Lib staff.
Toulouse-based Aéris is looking at slots for domestic flights, while Air Littoral is interested in slots to Algiers and Oran. Air France has also requested slots.
Source: Flight International
