With the new transatlantic open skies agreement due to take effect from the start of the summer 2008 season on 30 March 2008, Airport Coordination Ltd (ACL) says grandfather rights virtually take up all available air space at London Heathrow.
ACL is the independent slot coordinator with sole responsibility for the allocation of the airport”s slot arrangements in accordance with EU regulations. It provides coordination services at all of the major airports in the UK and Ireland including Aberdeen, Belfast International and Belfast City, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Dublin, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Glasgow, Heathrow, Jersey, London City, Luton, Manchester, Newcastle, Southampton, Shannon and Stansted.
In a statement ACL says that Heathrow is the world”s busiest international airport, handling 67m passengers and 470,000 air transport movements in 2006. There are physical constraints on runway, terminal and apron capacities, and environmental limits on the number of night flights and annual air transport movements.
Heathrow slots are highly scarce and demand far outstrips supply. Incumbent carriers have ”grandfather rights” to about 97% of the runway slots available, while the remaining slots are at the periphery of the operating day and at times generally considered unsuitable for transatlantic services.
Grandfather rights are subject to a use-it-or-lose-it rule, but the failure rate is typically less than 0.5% each season. There has been little increase in runway capacity since 2002, after a decade of steady improvement and slots are particularly scarce during the morning period.
Capacity is reviewed in advance of each season, but no new landing slots have been added between 06:00-12:59 (local time) since 1998.
ACL director of coordination James Cole said: ”The liberalisation of a bilateral agreement does not make airport slots available or confer any special allocation priority. Some carriers, such as those in the US. currently restricted to Gatwick under Bermuda II, will qualify as ”new entrants” to Heathrow under the EU Slot Regulation.
”This gives them priority in the allocation of 50% of slots in the pool. However, the lack of available pool slots at viable times for transatlantic services means that new entrant status is of little practical value in this instance.”
Slots are not route specific, so incumbent operators could add new transatlantic services using their existing slots. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic could add transatlantic frequencies; American Airlines and United Airlines could operate to new US gateways; and other EU carriers such as Air France, bmi, or Lufthansa could enter the Heathrow ” US market.
Slots may be exchanged, one for one, between air carriers. Slots may also be transferred between air carriers by way of a slot exchange. Carriers like Continental, Delta, Northwest and US Airways could use this mechanism to acquire Heathrow slots from alliance partners or from other carriers.
All transfers and exchanges are subject to confirmation of feasibility by the coordinator, in particular that the change of use does not cause prejudice to airport operations. For example, there may be insufficient terminal or apron capacity to accommodate a change of use from short haul to transatlantic operations using a larger aircraft.
The number of feasible new transatlantic services will depend critically on the exact slot times, aircraft size, and terminal of operation. It will also depend on how rapidly new services are introduced and how flexible carriers can be to fit within the airport”s constraints.