Originally Posted by
BleedingOn
Questions for those that know more than me on these matters...
The remedy slots that are to be operated domestically by EI on a wet lease, is there any restriction in their issuance that requires them to be used solely for EDI/ABZ indefinitely? Can they be "transformed" into long haul slots at a later date?
From the
EC judgement (PDF):
1.3.1 As a general rule, the Slots obtained by the Prospective Entrant from IAG as a result of the Slot Release Procedure shall be used only to provide a Competitive Air Service on the Relevant City Pair for which the Prospective Entrant has requested them from IAG through the Slot Release Procedure. These Slots cannot be used on another city pair unless the Prospective Entrant has operated the Relevant City Pair for which these Slots have been transferred for a number of full consecutive IATA Seasons (“Utilisation Period”).
1.3.2 The Prospective Entrant will be deemed to have grandfathering rights for the Slots once appropriate use of the Slots has been made on the Relevant City Pair for the Utilisation Period. In this regard, once the Utilisation Period has elapsed, the Prospective Entrant will be entitled to use the Slots obtained on the basis of these Commitments exclusively to operate services on any European Short-haul City Pair or the Identified Long-haul City Pairs (“Grandfathering”).
The "Utilisation Period" is defined as 6 IATA seasons (3 years). Once 3 years is up, VS can use them either for any short-haul service or for Cairo, Moscow or Riyadh (the "Identified Long-haul City Pairs"). But on the basis of a cursory read of the Commitments (and I'm happy to be proven wrong), VS is
not allowed to use these slots for any other long-haul services after 3 years.
Originally Posted by
BleedingOn
Also, is there any restriction on using a wet lease operator for these slots? Would Virgin be required to take them "in house" after a certain period of time?
I don't think there's any restriction, and that makes sense in my view. The purpose of the remedies is to enforce competition to BA on short-haul routes. From the consumer's point of view, that competition is the same (i.e. a VS-marketed flight, with various other codeshares) whether or not the red A320 happens to have a tiny green shamrock beside the entry door.