Redacted (MOVE)
Subject:
Summary of slot waiver discussion with IATA
From: Redacted (MOVE) < Redacted>
Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2020 4:20 PM
To: Redacted (MOVE) < Redacted>; Redacted (MOVE) < Redacted>; Redacted (MOVE) < Redacted>; Redacted
(MOVE) < Redacted>; Redacted (MOVE) < Redacted>; Redacted (MOVE) < Redacted>; Redacted (CAB- Redacted) <
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Subject: quick summary of slot waiver discussion with IATA
Quick summary of discussion with Redacted and Redacted (IATA) on extension of slots waiver to the winter season.
Redacted and myself took part on the Commission side.
Redacted and Redacted introduced IATA’s request for an urgent decision to extend the slots waiver to the entire
winter 2020/2021 season.
Redacted reassured IATA of the importance with which the Commission regarded this issue and that the
Commission was looking at all aspects.
For IATA, urgency is borne out of the need to provide airlines with certainty and to facilitate planning of the season.
The situation of airlines remains grave. Booking profiles are like nothing seen previously: long–term bookings into
the winter season are way behind the level of previous seasons. There is a danger that there might just be a small
‘bubble’ for intra-EU leisure traffic this season but that thingshthan things will fall off a cliff for what is the more
difficult season for airlines this winter. Business traffic will not come back quickly. There is also danger for adverse
impact on regional and feeder traffic which might not be sustainable without healthy long haul bookings.
Redacted said that they airlines need the waiver in order to allow airlines to return slots to the pool and provide a
stable schedule.
I mentioned that key to our understanding was that nothing in the current regulation prevents airlines from
returning slots before the series return deadline, this is part of the normal procedure. I asked how a waiver could
incentivise airlines to return these series?
Redacted said that airlines would prefer to offer a meaningful schedule without having to cut schedules, as
happened at the onset of the crisis. They don’t like to offer schedules for sale and then have to make significant
cancellations. I asked for more details of the implications here, as it would help inform the decision on the waiver.
She clearly mentioned that airlines doing so would of course expect to have the series available to them in winter
2021/2022.
Without a waiver airlines will skew their schedules to airports where they can least afford to lose the slots in winter
2021/2022.
She mentioned that there had been some kind of agreement with the airports and coordinators that newly-
allocated slots for the winter season would not be eligible for grandfathering. This involves taking a snapshot of
those slots held by a carrier as of the SAL (slot allocation list) which dates from beginning of June). I said that we
were interested in this but that we saw a problem of legal compatibility with the slots regulation, which does not
distinguish between newly-allocated and historic slots and that individual airlines could legally challenge such an
interpretation.
IATA undertook to provide further information on these points. They also asked if there was any chance of the
waiver being approved by the end of July. Redacted pointed out the September deadline in the slot waiver
regulation and that there was no possibility of promising anything more than that for the time being.
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