THE UK CIVIL AVIATION Authority is calling for Europe's airport slot-allocation rules to be changed, to make slot trading for cash legal and to use vacant slots more efficiently.
It says that the existing, two-year old, European Commission (EC) regulation "...is not working" and warns that the business opportunities offered by final deregulation in 1997 will be restricted unless the rules have been improved.
The primary aim is to introduce third carriers to duopoly routes and second carriers to monopolies, to increase competition.
The CAA proposed changes, which include:
a proposal that the market in slots, which is now limited and essentially conducted in secret, should be made transparent to "...maintain and improve flexibility in the system";
slots which become available for any reason should be "husbanded" and allocated on the densest routes where there is demand from new entrants - not necessarily new-start carriers;
new-start airlines show greater commitment to actually launching before becoming eligible for premium slots. Before obtaining operating licences and air operator's certificates, they would be given lower priority for slots.
Calling for consideration of the proposals by the EC, CAA chairman Christopher Chataway says: "Contrary to some hopes, the third [EC liberalisation] package has not engendered much increase in competition. There has not so far been any great benefit for passengers.
"On many of the denser routes in Europe, there are still just two airlines, which are accustomed to co-operating rather than competing. On a few routes - such as London-Amsterdam - we have seen a third competitor come in, with the result that there has been a real increase in competition, with better service and lower fares."
The CAA notes, however, that "...80% of the best international routes in the Community have congested airports at one end or the other", making further competition, as envisaged from 1997, difficult to achieve.
Source: Flight International
