It started with a headline about Air Canada handing daily Heathrow slots to Korean Air. I wanted to know how slots work, who the players are, what they do to avoid losing them, and who pays.
The core is a rule from the 1990s: use at least 80% of a slot or lose it. It checks that a plane took off and landed, not whether anyone was on board. In 2021 Lufthansa’s CEO said as much, that the airline would fly thousands of empty flights rather than give up slots.
The case in short
- The maths is lopsided. Slot pairs have sold for tens of millions. Protecting one with ghost flights costs about £3 million a season, a ratio between 1:7 and 1:20.
- Carbon pricing is no deterrent. EU ETS and CORSIA costs are small next to the value of the slot.
- The rule was suspended in 2020 and the system coped. Then it came back.
Who loses
- Passengers, who pay a congestion premium of roughly 25% at Heathrow.
- New airlines, which are almost entirely shut out of a system allocated by history.
- The environment, through ghost flights and their emissions.
- The public, which gets nothing when slots are sold between airlines.