The Airport Slot Allocation Regulations 2006
The UK is required under article 14.5 of EC Regulation 95/93 (as amended) to introduce a scheme of sanctions to control air carriers that repeatedly and intentionally misuse airport slots at the UK’s four coordinated airports (currently; Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester).
Following industry consultations in 2005 the Department for Transport appointed ACL to design, develop and implement an appropriate slot sanctions scheme for the UK. The DFT and ACL consulted the industry in May 2006 on the draft of a proposed scheme.
The design of the scheme has now been finalised and the Airports Slot Allocation Regulations 2006 (the “Regulations’) were laid before Parliament for approval on 11th October 2006 and will come into force on 1st January 2007.
Regulations 14-19 give to ACL as the appointed Coordinator of the four UK airports powers to deal with misuse of slots by imposing fines or in some cases to issue ‘directions’ to achieve this objective. ACL has also been given new powers to impose fines where schedule information it has requested is not properly provided at both the schedules facilitated and the coordinated airports in the UK.
The Regulations are supplemented by an Enforcement Code, which sets out the processes which the Coordinator and Schedules Facilitator must follow when exercising their powers under the Regulation.
