Airport slots are saved for airline companies. Part 1

Industry associations agreed not to take away airport slots in case of lack of flights.

IATA together with a number of industry associations urges European Commission to prolong to winter season release of the rule according to which airline companies may lose airport slots assigned to them. Slots are time intervals for take-off and landing – valuable asset and usually if airline company is not flying, in busy airports it loses slots automatically. But in the terms of the pandemic fight for keeping slots would cause necessity to make a lot of empty flights – this is what IATA is trying to avoid.

International Air Transport Association (IATA) together with some other associations agreed to prolong the term of use-it-or-lose-it refusal rule for winter slots (specified intervals for take-off and landing of the airplanes in the airports). According to the rule airline companies have to use not less than 80% of the allocated slots or they risk to lose the right for slot in the future seasons.

In IATA mark that now it is critically important that European Commission would register prolongation of the terms and explained rules of the game. To simplify the process of taking decision ACI Europe, Airlines for Europe (A4E), Airlines International Representation in Europe (AIRE) IATA and European Airport Coordinators Association (EUCA) agreed to special terms taking into consideration “emergency circumstances in which found airports and airline companies”.