FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1993
1993 - 0137.PDF
IMTEKHATIOHAL Editorial Enquiries +44 (81) 652 3842 Editorial Fax +44 (81) 652 3840 Display Advertising +44 (81) 652 3315 Display Advertising Fax +44 (81) 652 8981 Classified Advertising +44 (81) 652 3816 Classified Advertising Fax +44 (81) 652 3279 Telex 892084 REEDBP G Subscriptions +44 (81) 649 7271 fax: +44 (81) 681 0753 Back issues (recent copies only) +44 (81) 652 3335 Picture Library +44 (81) 652 3427 Flight Directories +44 (707) 665151 USA Newstrade Sales Enquiries +1 (718) 392 7477 LONDON Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, UK Editorial enquiries Editor Allan Winn Editor's PA Barbara Raine Deputy Editor Forbes Mutch News Editor Andrew Chuter Features Editor David Learmount Business Editor Kevin O'Toole Military Editor Mike Gaines Air Transport Editor Ian Goold +44 (81) 652 3842 +44 (81) 652 3882 +44 (81) 652 3882 +44 (81) 652 3852 +44 (81) 652 3843 +44 (81) 652 3845 +44 (81) 652 3835 +44 (81) 652 8809 +44 (81) 652 3834 Technology/Industry Editor Simon Elliott +44 (81) 652 3838 +44 (81) 652 3096 +44 (81) 652 3842 +44 (81) 652 3850 +44 (81) 652 3828 +44 (81) 652 3848 +44 (81) 652 3847 +44 (81) 652 8047 +44 (81) 652 8047 +44 (81) 652 8054 +44 (237) 451756 Databases Editor Tom Hamill Editorial Assistant Kate Sarslield Production Editor Chris Thornton Design Editor Mike Wells Layout Sub-editor Annabel Goddard Layout Sub-editor Jenny Long Technical Artist Tim Hall Technical Artist David Hatchard Technical Artist John Marsden Spaceflight Correspondent Tim Furniss Fax +44 (237) 451600 Photographer (Europe) Mark Wagner +44 (81) 944 5225 Display Advertisement Sates Sales Manager Clive Richardson +44 (81) 652 3315 Assistant Sales Manager Nick Wilcox +44 (81) 652 3892 Regional Manager Northern and Eastern Europe Mark Janawayr44 (81) 652 3317 Regional Manager UK and Scandinavia Janice Lowe +44 (81) 652 3316 Advertisement production Howard Mason +44 (81) 652 3267 EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST European Editor (Brussels) Julian Moxon +32 (2) 657 9689 Fax +32 (2) 657 5260 Munich Correspondent Douglas Barrie +49 (89) 689 1041 Fax +49 (89) 689 1045 Paris Correspondent Gilbert Sedbon +33 (1) 4825 5261 Israel Correspondent Arie Egozi +972 (3) 967 1155 Moscow Correspondent Alexander Velovich+7 (095) 393 4717 Fax +7 (095) 393 4717 Sales Director (France) Pierre Mussard +33 (1) 46 29 46 29 Representative (Italy) Romano Ferrario +39 (2) 58084 302 AMERICAS American Editor Graham Warwick +1 (404) 587 2927 Fax +1 (404) 594 1534 Washington Correspondent Kieran Daly +1 (703) 836 7443 Fax +1 (703) 836 8344 USA West Coast Correspondent (Los Angeles) Guy Norris +1 (714) 252 8971 Fax +1 (714) 252 8972 Photographer (USA) Craig Schmiiman +1 (310) 452 4464 Fax +1 (310) 452 3515 President RBP (USA) Ray Barnes +1 (212) 867 2080 Traffic Manager JoAnn Lapp +1 (212) 867 2080 Fax +1 (212) 687 6604 Vice President US Sales John Tidy +1 (714) 756 1057 Fax +1 (714) 756 2514 Sales Director (Mid West and Canada) Gene Glendinning+1 (708) 635 9920 Fax +1 (708) 635 0602 Sales Director (East Coast) Robert Hancock +1 (703) 836 7444 Fax +1 (703) 836 7446 Business Development Director Sheena Robbins +1 1703) 836 7444 Fax +1 (703) 836 7446 ASIA/PACIFIC Asian Editor (Singapore) John Bailey +65 226 3188 Fax +65 227 1769 Australian Correspondent Paul Pbelan +61 (70) 532 791 Fax +61 (70) 532 791 Sales Director Mike Hancock (Singapore) +65 226 3188 Account Manager Fiona Bartholomew +65 226 3188 Fax +65 223 6960 Regional Representative (Japan) Shoichi Maruyama +81 (3) 3234 2161 Fax +81 (3) 3234 1143 Publisher Les Edwards +44 (81) 652 3436 For full advertisement information see inside back cover. COMMENT A BETTER SLOT The European Commission has decided that slot allocation should be con ducted within a legally binding frame work. The move will be welcomed cautiously by the European airlines (not least because they helped formulate it), but there will be more caution than welcome from the non- European industry. The Commission's move is laudable to an extent, but it will not create a single extra slot at a congested airport nor, necessarily, lead to the transfer of a single slot from one airline to another. What it does do, however, is create the legal precedent for the Commission to make far more powerful rules in the future. Slot distribution is, by its nature, highly con troversial. It is only by having access to slots that an airline gains entry to the airports it wishes to serve. The slot is, therefore, arguably the most potent instru ment of regulation (or abuse) of competition in the airline industry. The allocation procedures in use today are the result of several years of painful experience for the International Air Transport Association and the airline industry. They are based on twice- yearly meetings of a scheduling committee at each airport and on the (it is to be hoped) unbiased daily decisions taken by a slot co ordinator based at the airport. With air transport liberalisation now at least a paper reality, and with existing rights under challenge (as in Virgin versus British Airways), the pres sure on the system is bound to increase. Despite the protests of the smaller and newer airlines, the system in general works well enough, the most recent test of this being the Commission's attempt to change it for some thing better. That attempt failed for no other reason than that it could not find a better method, especially after the Commission was persuaded that some of its more extreme ideas, such as slot confiscation, were unacceptable. The Commission has introduced an important change, however. It has made into rules what I he slot is arguably the most potent instrument of regulation (or abuse) of competition in the airline industry." were previously no more than advisory guide lines. It is true that these largely reflect what was being done already, but their enshrinement in law means that airlines will theoretically have recourse to an appeals procedure. This will involve the Commission in a new arbitration role, which it might or might not relish. It took considerable effort by the industry to persuade the Commis sion that market forces cannot be used to gov ern slot allocation. It now accepts that a fi nancially based system would allow rich, well- established airlines to keep all the prime slots for themselves and that smaller "new entrant" carriers would not stand a chance. This would have meant that the public would suffer from the lack of choice that is the antithesis of a free market. Instead, the Commis sion has decided rightly that a fair and transpar ent (and legally binding) system of slot allocation is the only way. It has also introduced a "use it or lose it" scheme to ensure that airlines holding "grandfather" rights make reasonable use of their slots. Failure to do so will result in redistribution — a move which many slot-deprived airlines will welcome, in theory at least. It is difficult, however, to see how a well- established international system can accommo date a slot-allocation procedure designed purely for Europe. Aviation is global, and Europe is a part of it. There are reasonable concerns that the Commission, in addressing the desires of its own airlines, will damage the interests of the non-European airlines which use its airports. The only way in which it can guarantee that that does not happen, of course, is for it to be responsible for all the bilateral agreements between Europe and the rest of the world — and that has already been conceded to be a short- term impossibility. Putting a legal framework around slots is one thing: making the international air-transport industry work within a European legal frame work is something else entirely. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 27 January - 2 February, 1993
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
