According to its own statements, the Lufthansa Group will be making 18,000 economically and ecologically senseless flights this winter in order to defend take-off and landing rights. But the EU defends itself with plausible arguments against the ill-considered attack by CEO Spohr.
Lufthansa machines at Frankfurt Airport: In the dispute with the EU Commission, the crane line has flown.
The air is burning between Lufthansa and the EU Commission. In the dispute over the meaning of the applicable slot rules, both sides insist on their point of view. However, the matter is complex. had at the end of December CEO Carsten Spohr made the conflict public by putting himself in a interview complained that the Lufthansa Group, to which Swiss also belongs, had to carry out 18,000 economically unnecessary flights in winter in order to Take-off and Landing Rights of the group, the slots, to defend. Indeed, half-empty ghost flights would be economically and ecologically grotesque.
Brussels shows flexibility
The problem exists because major airports operate at their capacity limits in normal times, which is why an 80/20 rule applies to the coveted slots. If an airline owns a slot, it must use at least 80 percent of it in order to be allowed to keep it – otherwise it expires and can go to a competitor. The useful rule is intended to prevent airlines from only occupying some slots but not using them in order to keep competitors away. At the beginning of the pandemic, the EU suspended the requirement. Airlines currently only have to use 50 percent of the time slots instead of 80 percent, from around the end of March to 64 percent, as experts then expect the number of passengers to increase significantly.
With the gradual adjustments, Brussels has rightly geared itself to the development of the pandemic and is also signaling flexibility for the future. For Austria and the Netherlands as well as the non-members Switzerland and Great Britain, the EU Commission has set the value for slot use back to zero, as it recently announced.
consideration of all interests
Rightly so, in the spirit of competition, Brussels also takes into account the interests of consumers and all commercial participants in the air transport market, such as those of low-cost providers such as Ryanair, which for their part would like to take over attractive slots from national airlines, and of airports, which for economic reasons want as many as possible again as quickly as possible want to handle passengers. Brussels also considers the 50 quota to be appropriate at the moment.
Lufthansa rightly points out that the 50 percent threshold applies to individual slots. As a result, certain simplifications in some countries are of little help if there is a lack of harmonization in the EU as a whole. There is no point in keeping a start slot in Frankfurt if the landing slot in Madrid expires at the same time.
Auction of slots
Nevertheless, Spohr, who has led the group well through the pandemic so far, got bogged down in his criticism. With the exception of tentative support from Air France-KLM, he has little backing. In addition, it would be wiser not to present such concerns individually, but either through the association or with like-minded competitors. In addition, it is likely to be a problem that has only existed for a few weeks and that only affects about five percent of all flights in the group anyway. Lufthansa wasted energy and, in the worst case, lost sympathy for an unnecessary campaign.
Furthermore, the conflict could offer an opportunity to question the practice of allocating slots. In telecommunications, good experience has been gained with the temporary assignment of frequency usage rights. That is why there is a good deal to be said for the aviation industry to auction off a certain proportion of take-off and landing rights. In this process, the regulator only has to ensure that no airline can acquire a dominant position on the respective route by purchasing additional rights.
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