Slots Regulation under review

6 September 2022: The Commission released their proposal in mid-July to amend the EU Slot Regulation for Northern Winter 2022 and reinstate standard airport slot usage rules (80/20) for the upcoming Winter season. It now falls on Member States and Parliament to urgently proceed to have this adopted in time (by the end ofOctober).

Together with other airlines associations, ERA contacted the Commission, MEPs and transport attaches to share our concerns about mid-term traffic recovery, and therefore recommend a lower usage threshold (70/30).

We also expressed some concerns with some other elements of the proposal that diverge from the current regulation:

• The JNUS articles change the application of JNUS :
  • There will be two kinds of JNUS, one more general and one for COVID/other events subject to stricter conditions.
  • The methodology used for the calculation of JNUS under para 4a will be different from the regular calculation of JNUS
  • The Commission took the JNUS criteria from the EUACA guidance on what is severe impediment , number of passengers, etc. The idea is further target the protection of slots and support the use of slots that are not covered by JNUS.
• Art. 10. 4a regarding JNUS “When the non-utilisation of a slot is justified by the restrictions referred to in the first subparagraph, the coordinators shall disregard that slot and apply the slot use percentage referred to Article 8(2) and Article 10(2) to the remaining slots of the series.”
• The Delegated Act timeline and implementation is unclear (Art 10.a.5).
  • Any changes of the use rate within the respective scheduling period should be decided and published by the Commission before the so-called SHL deadline (SHL = Slot Historical List – to be communicated to airlines), ideally at least 14 days prior to that date. (e.g. SHL deadline for S23: 12 September 2022). In any case, only one single usage rate (possibly reduced during the season) should apply in a given scheduling period.
• The provisions for Slot returns (Art. 10.a.7) diverge from existing Regulation and global practices: the aim of the Commission with this article is to ensure airlines don’t repeatedly return slots late, therefore they have given tools to coordinators to monitor airlines who repeatedly return slots with more than 3 weeks. This is for slots airlines do not intend to operate therefore not linked to JNUS.

Next steps:

• Meeting of Council AVIA group on 1 and 8 September
• Council will need to reach a compromise proposal by mid Sep.
• The proposal will then go to the EP on 3 October
• Publication end October

In parallel, the Commission started the consultation process on the revision of regulation 95/93 with a four-week call for evidence: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13528-Allocation-of-EU-airport-slots-review-of-rules_en. (deadline 21 November). The Commission proposal is expected end 2023.​

It is therefore even more important to make sure this last delegated act – if adopted, does not introduce elements that would be impractical in the long run. 

Next steps :

• The Call For Evidence (CfE) end on 21 November.
• Publication of the public consultation during Q4 2022.
• Proposal expected for Q3 2023, before the Commission and EP term expire in 2024.