EU freezes airport slot rules ahead of summer season 

The legislative report was adopted with 508 votes in favour and 20 against amid seven abstentions, concluding two months of informal stakeholder consultations and negotiations between the Commission, EU countries and the Parliament.

Following the Parliament vote on 7 May, the rules are now ready to be implemented.

In mid-March, the Commission proposed to temporarily freeze the EU's 'use it or lose it' rule, which allows individual airlines to keep their landing slots at European airports from one season to the next provided that they use at least 80% of them effectively.

The EU executive argued that airlines should not be forced to operate half-empty aeroplanes in order to retain their slots, for both economic and environmental reasons.

But the proposal was heavily criticised by low-cost airlines and airports, which claimed that the new rules would distort competition, raise barriers for airlines entering the market and prevent airports from using scarce capacity efficiently.

In its report, the Parliament ruled that any extension of the summer 2009 slot exemption will have to be preceded by a full impact assessment "analysing the possible effects on competition and consumers". Extension will also only be considered only if it forms part of a wider proposal to revise the EU's Slots Framework Regulation, MEPs said.

The MEPs thus refused to sanction the use of the 'comitology' procedure, which would have left decisions on future revisions of the rules in the hands of the Commission. Under a general revision of the regulation, the Parliament is guaranteed co-legislative powers on the matter in the future.

The Association of European Airlines (AEA) applauded the decision, but said it would have preferred the exemption's extension not to have been automatically linked to a revision of the whole regulation.

AEA Secretary-General Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus said it was impossible to predict how long the downturn would continue, arguing that "we have nothing to benchmark it against". The crisis in the airline sector, he pointed out, "has already exceeded in severity any past economic upheavals in our industry".

After six consecutive years of growth at an average rate of 3% and zero growth in 2008, the number of flights in Europe is forecast to fall by 4.9% in 2009, according to Commission estimates. More than 80% of European airports have seen a decrease in traffic since January, with passenger traffic dropping by up to 10% and cargo traffic declining by up to 30%.