Airport operators want to be able to auction permissions to highest bidder
Representatives from Europe's largest airlines are increasingly confident that some trading of airport slots will be legalised by the end of the year, with feedback on planned rule changes now complete.
The European Commission issued a consultation paper in November last year on its plans to reform take-off and landing slot allocation at Europe's most congested airports - Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, London Heathrow and Gatwick, Milan Linate, Madrid and Paris Orly.
At the moment, the transfer of historic, or "grandfathered" rights in return for money, called secondary trading, is outlawed. Deals have to be phrased in non-financial terms, such as slot swaps accompanied by cash investments. The EC proposed various mechanisms to allocate slots, but leaned towards secondary trading combined with a redistribution of a proportion of grandfathered rights. The EC is keen to "regularise the situation", making existing secondary trading deals transparent.
According to a British Airways source, although the airline benefits from the status quo, particularly at London Heathrow, it has joined other major airlines in supporting such a move by the EC.
However, the Commission also says it wishes to see "a more ambitious commercial slot allocation mechanism" at the most congested airports, suggesting the annual confiscation and redistribution of around 3% of slots in a bid to loosen the hold of former national carriers currently in dominant positions at their respective hubs. The EC fears any trading will allow these carriers to further strengthen their existing slot portfolios.
The BA source says successful lobbying from the Association of European Airlines seems to have persuaded the EC to look again at this part of the proposal.
"We expect the crazier ideas in the consultation paper to have been dropped by the time it reaches the formal proposal stage," the BA source says.
The proposal will face opposition from airport operators, many of which want to move towards a primary trading system for slots, where the airport could auction permissions to offer its infrastructure at certain times to the highest bidder.
Meanwhile, UK low-fare airline EasyJet is joining its Slovakian rival SkyEurope in challenging the slot co-ordination at Warsaw airport's new Etiuda no-frills terminal. The two carriers accuse the slot co-ordinator at Warsaw airport, an employee of LOT Polish Airlines, of doing the Polish flag carrier a favour by redistributing existing carriers' slots in an auction.
They claim such a lottery would jeopardise summer 2005 schedules and distort competition since LOT would be exempt from this slot handover, and could use slots for its start-up no-frills subsidiary Centralwings.
JUSTIN WASTNAGE / BRUSSELS
Source: Flight International
