Just a week after the EU Commission announced the very strict “Fit for 55” carbon emissions plan, Brussels saw fit to approve a regulation on airport slots (take-off and landing rights) which in many circumstances will force airlines to fly empty or half-empty planes. From next November until April, airlines operating in Union airports will have to use at least 50% of every single series of slots they hold, otherwise they will lose the corresponding take-off and landing rights.
The obligation to use slots is the rule in normal times, but in the midst of the pandemic, when passenger traffic was almost extinct, such a strict rule was suspended, in Europe as in the rest of the world. Now the EU is reintroducing it, betting that the market will return to normal by the autumn.
Says prof. Antonio Bordoni, analyst of airlines and airports: “Elsewhere in the world (United Kingdom, Americas and Asia-Pacific) the regulators, evidently more prudent, have opted for much more flexible measures. Only the EU dogmatically insists that traffic will quickly return to a level that appears to be higher than any reasonable forecast ”.
Iata (international air transport association) has branded this decision as “out of reality”. Says IATA Director General Willie Walsh: “Air transport is facing the worst crisis in its history. The EU Commission shows contempt for the sector and for the States that have repeatedly called for a more flexible solution ”.
Bordoni again: “This is in stark contradiction with the package of proposals presented on 14 July 2021 by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. The Fit for 55 package contains thirteen legislative proposals on energy and climate, to allow the European Union to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 ”. But it seems that flying empty planes doesn’t matter in Brussels.