Overseas airline and governments are quick to level charges that British Airways has a monopoly of the take-off and landing slots at Heathrow. Whilst it is true that the former British national airline is by far the largest operator at the airport there are other carriers, notably BMI, who have a significant presence. However, for whatever reasons, BA has been less than forthcoming in speaking out at the dominance of Air France at its hubs, and for that matter Lufthansa at both Frankfurt and Munich. It has taken one of the UK”s most forthright emerging carriers to place on record its disquiet on what is happening, the airline choosing Paris and one of the days of the Queen”s visit to France to celebrate Entente Cordiale for its outspoken comments.
At a press conference in the French capital, easyJet chief executive Ray Webster launched a campaign to raise awareness for what he perceives as a raw deal suffered by French air travellers and called for a number of substantial changes to be made in order to increase airline competition and decrease airfares in France. According to Webster no other major European market is so dominated by its national airline: Air France accounts for 74% of the domestic French air market. Air France has a monopoly on 27 out of 43 routes out of Paris, with meaningful competition on only three routes (Marseilles, Nice, Toulouse). Air France is the only European flag carrier to have increased its domestic market share from 1996 to 2003. Air France accounts for 53% of take-off and landing slots at Orly Airport and 74% at Charles de Gaulle. No other European airline dominates its capital city airports to this extent.
He made the point that the process for the allocation of take-off and landing slots at the two main Paris airports has only served to increase the dominance of Air France in the capital city. Questions should also be raised about the independence of the slot co-ordinator, COHOR. The French Government has a legal duty to appoint a truly independent co-ordination body ” yet COHOR”s founder members, which appoint the slot co-ordinator, comprise Air France, two airlines affiliated to Air France (Britair and Regional), two bankrupt airlines (Euralair Horizon and Air Littoral), and only two airlines independent of Air France (Star Airlines and Corsair).
Air travellers to and from Paris are faced with some of the highest airport charges in Europe. Orly and Charles de Gaulle are more than twice as expensive as London”s Gatwick airport for the provision of exactly the same service. easyJet does not operate at Heathrow. He points out that Aeroports de Paris, which controls the two main Paris airports, insists upon charging airlines exactly the same terminal charge for using the second rate and poorly linked Terminal 3 as for Terminal 2, a superb edifice, fully integrated into the Paris Metro network and even Eurostar. This represents an extraordinary cross-subsidy from the passengers of low-cost airlines to the likes of Air France.
Mr Webster noted that budget airlines account for only 4% of French domestic air travel, compared to 42% in the UK; 18% in Germany and 14% in Italy. Low-cost airlines have a presence on 20% of intra-EU routes from France, compared to 39% from the UK and 30% from Italy. Only 9% of air travellers leaving Paris for other destination in the EU travel on low-cost airlines, compared to 39% from Berlin, 38% from Dublin, and 35% from London.
To get a better deal for the consumer easyJet is calling for a capacity freeze to be imposed on Air France at Charles de Gaulle and Orly, at the current levels, to restrict further anti-competitive growth; A change to the constitution of COHOR to make it truly independent from Air France; and an increase in the number of slots to be allocated at Orly. At present Orly is artificially constrained to 250,000 aircraft movements each year ” but this number is never reached and in 2003 there were only 210,000 movements. easyJet proposes raising the number of slots to be allocated to 275,000 ” on the assumption that 10%, on average, go unused and the cap of 250,000 movements is unaffected.
By itself easyJet is unlikely to get anywhere unless it decides to go to Brussels (and probably not then). French intransigence will win the day. Whilst British Airways is clearly quite happy with the status quo (after all BA is now in the much better T2 and remembers how it got its fingers burnt with Air Littoral) there is clearly a huge market potential available in France. The same goes for BMI and its offspring, linked not to Skyteam but the Star Alliance. Both carriers need to re-consider their French connection and decide whether they should stand still or help easyJet, either publicly or in some form of behind the scene assistance. The monopoly of what is still a national airline (43% owned by the state once the takeover of KLM goes through) goes against all the messages being put out by the EU in terms of the consumer.