I can't post links yet, please search for
http://thenationalnews@com/world/eur...-airport-slots
The EU is being urged to relax airline rules that led to thousands of empty planes crossing Europe over the winter, prompting concerns over the effect on the climate and unnecessary waste of resources.
German airline Lufthansa said it would have to run 18,000 empty flights during the winter to keep its airport slots.
Its Belgian subsidiary, Brussels Airlines, expects 3,000 such trips by the end of March.
The so-called “use it or lose it” rule means that airlines must use 80 per cent of their allocated slots at airports or risk losing their take-off and landing rights to other carriers.
Although the EU reduced this to 50 per cent after air travel slumped during the pandemic, the threshold will rise again this summer, and critics say it is still too high given the unpredictable effects of the Omicron variant.