The European Commission announced on Tuesday 10 March that it would propose legislation to temporarily ease airlines' obligations on the use of airport slots.
Under EU Regulation (EEC 95/93), airlines are subject to the so-called "80/20" or "use-it-or-lose-it" rule obliging them to operate at least 80% of their take-off and landing slots at European airports or risk losing these slots the following year.
Fearing that they will be put at a disadvantage in favour of competitors, airlines continue to operate their flights despite the considerable drop in bookings due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Nearly empty planes are therefore put into circulation.
"Air traffic is expected to continue to decline, so the European Commission would like to legislate on airport slots very quickly," the Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, told the press, adding that this was a temporary measure in favour of businesses and the environment.
"In view of the urgency, the Commission will present a legislative proposal in due course and calls on the European Parliament and the EU Council to adopt this measure quickly under the co-decision procedure", said European Transport Commissioner Adina Vălean.
This Commission proposal to amend the EU Slot Regulation will have to be approved by the EU Council and the European Parliament.
Members of Parliament mobilised. "I am satisfied that President von der Leyen has committed herself today to act as soon as possible, with the presentation of a short legislative proposal tomorrow", said Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, France), Chair of the Transport Committee, to the European Parliament on Tuesday.
Mrs Delli and seven other Greens/EFA members of the Transport Committee had sent a letter to Commissioner Vălean calling for a temporary relaxation of the "80/20" rule.
The same morning, two French MEPs from the EPP group, François-Xavier Bellamy and Brice Hortefeux, had also sent a written question to the Commission to this effect, recalling that the rule had "already been suspended after the 2001 attacks, after the SARS epidemic and the war in Iraq in 2003, and during the financial crisis in 2009".
According to an initial assessment of the impact of the epidemic on European airport operators carried out by the Airports Council International (ACI Europe), the loss of airport passengers in the first quarter of 2020 amounts to at least 67 million, "a 13.5% drop in airport traffic compared to a business-as-usual scenario", the ACI estimates. On the financial side, €1.32 billion in lost revenues were recorded compared to a normal financial quarter. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki and Camille-Cerise Gessant)