Commission aims to reform airport timeslots in bid to ease congestion
‘Old’ carriers monopolise airport timeslots as ground services face more competition.
The European Commission will present changes to rules governing airport services such as baggage handling and gate timeslots next week (1 December). The changes are deemed necessary to alleviate overcapacity and keep Europe competitive as the world’s aviation transport hub, it says. But airlines and transport workers are resisting the plans.
Overcrowding and inefficiency can be eased by reforming the allocation of take-off and landing slots, and the way contracts are allotted to companies providing ground-crew services, the Commission says. If nothing is done, 19 EU airports will be as congested as London’s Heathrow by 2030, affecting half of all flights, it claims.
Arguing that slots are being monopolised by longer-established carriers that are not using all of them, the Commission wants to revise the 1993 slots directive, to introduce a secondary trading system allowing airlines to buy and sell their slots. This type of system is already in place in the UK, but some countries – including Spain – ban the practice.
The Commission’s transport department, which still needs to have its proposal approved by the college of commissioners, wants a slot to be confiscated if it is being used less than 85% of the time. The current threshold is 80%. These confiscated slots would be auctioned off, as would any newly built capacity. They also propose a ‘slot reservation fee’, to discourage airlines from holding onto a slot until the last minute.
The Association of European Airlines (AEA) says the slot system does not need revision. It is concerned that the proposal is out of step with worldwide guidelines and would distort competition for European carriers. “We have repeatedly outlined the dangers and consequences during the development of the airports package, but it appears these warnings have gone unheeded,” says AEA secretary general Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus. The ‘use it or lose it’ requirement could force airlines to operate empty aircraft at times of low demand, the association says.
The European Business Aviation Association is also opposed to the slot reorganisation, saying that secondary trading and auctioning benefits large carriers over small operations, such as small regional and private operators.
Ground services
Competition for ground services was liberalised by the 1996 ground-handling services directive, opening the market to new companies not affiliated with the airport or the national carrier. But member states were given the ability to limit competition to just two companies for services involving the aircraft itself, such as baggage handling and refuelling. Several member states, including Austria and Germany, have taken advantage of this provision.
Fact File
Member states ‘failing’ on single sky targets
Siim Kallas, the European commissioner for transport, will tomorrow (25 November) warn that national governments are dragging their feet on implementing the 2009 Single European Sky legislation.
After reviewing performance plans submitted by member states in September, the Commission has concluded that the plans submitted by 22 member states are inadequate to meet the targets.
The European Airspace User Associations, a coalition of industry groups, said the lack of ambition from EU member states was unacceptable. “Instead of working together, countries are limiting their ambitions to their own borders and undermining everything Single European Sky is seeking to achieve,” it said.
Member states agreed to accelerate their efforts in setting up the blocs and improving airspace efficiency following the 2010 volcanic-ash crisis, which caused chaos in the skies over Europe. The legislation contains an EU-wide target for a 2.4% increase in cost efficiency by 2014 to deliver savings estimated at €250 million . Another target calls for delay per flight to be reduced to an average of 30 seconds by 2014, expected to deliver €920m in savings between 2012 and 2014. But neither would be achieved under most of the member states’ plans.
Only Belgium, Denmark, Lithuania, Poland and the Netherlands have produced plans that would enable them to meet the cost-efficiency target, the Commission says. All but ten member states would miss the punctuality target. The exceptions are Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK.
Member states have two months to submit revised performance plans to the Commission.
Under the new revision, the Commission wants to increase this number to three companies. But the change is being resisted by the European Transport Workers Federation, which says that liberalisation has led to deteriorating social protection for workers and no improvement in efficiency.
“The airlines are saying more competition will bring better quality services, but competition based on labour costs and quality are at odds,” says Enrique Carmona, the federation’s ground-staff representative. “This will never bring an improvement in quality – nor savings to the passenger; it would just lower costs for the airlines.”
The Commission’s transport department has sought to alleviate these concerns by including provisions on safety conditions for workers in the revision, and by allowing member states to require new companies that win contracts to transfer the staff from the previous contract-holder with their full existing benefits. But the federation says this needs to be a Commission requirement.
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The package will also contain a proposal that would require local authorities to justify how they set noise limits for aircraft that can fly above them, based on a specific list of possible concerns. But the proposal will contain no new EU limits on aircraft noise.