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Lufthansa Group Confirmed that 18,000 Flights had been Flown Empty to Keep Airport Slots

posted by martyb on Tuesday January 11 2022, @07:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the use-it-or-lose-it dept.

upstart writes:

Report: Lufthansa Group Confirmed That 18,000 Flights Had Been Flown Empty To Keep Airport Slots - Airlive:

[...] Under these "use it or lose it" regulations, prior to the pandemic carriers had to utilise at least 80pc of their scheduled take-off and landing slots.

This was revised to 50pc as coronavirus saw travel become increasingly difficult – but airlines are still struggling to hit this target.

As a result of Lufthansa Group's latest figures, the Belgian federal government has written to the European Commission, calling for a change to the rules on maintaining slots.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13 2022, @07:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13 2022, @07:36AM (#1212357)

    I am sort of leaning toward one proposed solution that has been working its way through the various systems instead of getting the slots and then treating them like property. First part of it is that slots expire every six months. Second, they get allocated according to the current formula, same as if a company hadn't met its 80% requirement. Third, slots cannot be sold or leased but can serviced by other airlines. Fourth, each slot has a fee for owning and on each use with more popular slots getting higher fees. Fifth is that there is a refund for early surrender based on peak travel. There are also smaller details like servicing limits, utilization requirements, and some other things that slip my mind.

    Together, these will result in less empty flights and more flights at better times. But a number of the large airlines paid big money for their slots and make big money leasing them or codesharing so the actual proposition is dead on arrival despite its support from other groups.