EC: Carriers Will Retain Airport Slots Despite Capacity Cuts

The European Commission this week said it will suspend its "use it or lose it" slot rule for the summer season, giving airlines the ability to take capacity out of the system without fear of losing the right to serve slot-constrained airports.

"Carriers will thus have access during the 2010 summer season to the same slots they had in summer 2009, regardless of whether or not they used them," the EC said in a statement this week, noting it has suspended the rules in the midst of previous economic downturns, most recently in 2003.

Noting the impact of the economic crisis on the airline sector, the EC recognized that carriers "have to reduce their capacity" in the face of declining demand.

"In order to prevent airlines maintaining their capacity and operating purely in order to keep their slots, the Commission is proposing a temporary freeze of the 80-20 rule during the 2009 summer season," EC said in a statement, referring to the slot rule that says airlines can keep slots "from one season to the next provided 80 percent of them were taken up."

Though the measure only applies to this summer's season, the EC said it also could extend relief from the slot restrictions for following seasons, "depending on how serious the situation appears."

Cheering the provision, Association of European Airlines secretary general Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus in a statement this week said, "Right now, we cannot predict how long this current downturn will continue. We have nothing to benchmark it against—it has already exceeded in severity any past economic upheavals in our industry. The one thing of which we can be certain is that all airlines, whether EU or non-EU, require flexibility to adapt their flights to the rapidly changing demand. By temporarily suspending a rigid provision, and by not discriminating for or against certain airlines, the EU has provided such additional flexibility."