Hangar 6 and The Royal Family
Under the original agreement the 'remedy' slots revert to IAG if VS fail to use them on the relevant routes for 3 full years. It is definitely not the case that EI would automatically inherit the slots, although I am not clear whether the slot trustee would invite bids from airlines to take over from VS. In which case EI might bid.
As Hangar 6 says, this only applies to the EDI and ABZ slots. The MAN slots are nothing to do with the 'remedy' issues and always belonged to VS.
As for VS's rather limp response to the Sunday Times article, one reason might be that the original agreement includes penalties for VS if they return the slots at a time which results in IAG losing their 'grandfathering' rights to the slots. However there is a window during each scheduling season when VS can notify their intention to terminate the slot agreement without risking such a penalty. The next window appears to be the two-week period that follows the next IATA scheduling conference, which is in November. So we might expect VS to confirm their withdrawal sometime between November 14th and 28th, presumably effective from the Summer 2015 scheduling season.
Last edited by BasilBush; 9th Sep 2014 at 19:14.