Proposed Changes To The Rules On Airport Slots

The current legal framework governing airport slots in the EU, provided by Regulation 95/93, is built upon the principles of the IATA Worldwide Scheduling Guidelines and has been in place for almost 20 years, although it was amended, in a largely technical way, in 2004. Over this period the Commission has sponsored several studies intended to examine and recommend whether more significant changes are appropriate, but they have not resulted in proposals for action, until 1 December 2011, when the Commission published, as part of its "airports package", a proposal for a new regulation on the subject, to update and replace Regulation 95/93. While the Commission's proposal is not as radical as some had feared (or wished, depending upon their point of view), it does nevertheless propose some quite significant changes.

Slot trading

The current Regulation permits airlines to exchange slots with each other. A practice has existed for some years, particularly at Heathrow, whereby slots are effectively bought and sold making use of this facility, with valuable slots being exchanged for "junk" slots plus a payment of money. It had been unclear whether this was consistent with the rules, but following a challenge to this practice by the States of Guernsey, who were upset at losing Guernsey's link with Heathrow when Air UK discontinued its service and "sold" its Heathrow slots to British Airways, the English High Court in 1999 held that such exchanges were permitted by the Regulation. The Commission at first was unwilling to recognise this judgment, but eventually, in early 2008, grudgingly accepted the practice, recognising that it had assisted US carriers in making practical use of the opportunity for entry to Heathrow created for them by the EU/US open skies agreement. However, the legal basis for such transactions has never been wholly clear, and they have lacked transparency.

The Commission is now proposing to introduce clarity and transparency, by an amendment which would permit, in addition to exchanges, transfers of slots between airlines, with or without monetary or other kind of compensation. In order to introduce greater transparency, air carriers involved in exchanges and transfers of slots would have to give the coordinator details of any monetary or other compensation involved, which would be published on a freely accessible website, and Member States would be obliged to establish a transparent framework to allow contact between carriers...