PARIS (Reuters) - A document seen by Reuters showed that global aviation heavyweights led by airline body IATA are pushing to postpone airport slot access regulations until October 2021, thus giving some room to budget carriers angered by steps they consider anti-competitive.
The draft plan, to be jointly released by IATA, the ACI airport body and slot coordinators, calls on regulators to expand the existing waiver of rules requiring airlines to use 80% of their windows for take-off and landing, or to cede some of them to competitors.
Slot rules and their removal have large implications for low-cost carriers' airline rivalry and market access, which were making ever deeper inroads prior to the pandemic.
"We oppose the extension to summer 2021 of slot waivers because this will lead to fewer flights and higher consumer fares," a spokeswoman for Ryanair said.
"Legacy airlines will have no incentives at hub airports to operate flights," she said. "Slot waivers distort competition by preventing the expansion of low-fare airlines, while legacy carriers can reduce capacity and increase prices."
The problem is highly contentious between airlines and airports, pitting budget carriers that are largely absent from IATA against the more conventional membership of the association.
The plan would restore the use-it-or-lose-it" concept during the northern summer in an effort to resolve issues, but reduce the usage rate needed to retain slots to 50 percent.
The draft document states, "All parties agree that the normal threshold (80:20) should be replaced by a lower threshold." "(The) threshold of the slot usage requirement is set at 50:50."
A spokesman said IATA had no immediate comment on the draft proposal.
The proposal would also allow incumbent carriers to sidestep the 50 percent rule on slots they return by February - too late for schedule preparation, competitors argue - for temporary allocation to rivals.
Ryanair or ultra-low-cost peer Wizz Air are unlikely to be pleased.
Jozsef Varadi, Chief Executive of the airline, told Reuters, "Wizz Air finds any attempt to extend the current slot waiver in full, in part or at lower thresholds entirely unacceptable." "Wizz Air is not involved in this effort that is detrimental to customers, organizations, taxpayers and the general workforce."
However, easyJet, a long-established budget carrier at major European airports, said that it "sees the IATA-led industry proposal as a good compromise."
Governments can decide on any extension of the waiver and must balance competition with support for an industry that has been brought to a virtual standstill in many regional and long-haul markets.
Nevertheless, analysts say, a blueprint with sector-wide backing is bound to affect the European Commission, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and other regulators.
For incumbents, in a season where demand is still likely to be too small to justify running full programs, it provides protection for their slot portfolios," aviation consultant John Strickland said, after Reuters shared key information.
"But low-cost aircraft carriers will see this as providing insufficient flexibility to launch new services," he said and the proposal risks "leaving airports unable to accept new flight capacity while seeing revenues continue to hemorrhage."
