Earth Protect Blog

By Raf Casert

The Associated Press

BRUSSELS » Europe’s sky is filling up with near-empty polluting planes that serve little other purpose than safeguarding airlines’ valuable time slots at some of the world’s most important airports.

The highly contagious omicron variant of COVID19 has put many off flying, and because of it, getting people and goods from point A to point B has become an afterthought for thousands of flights. It has created strange bedfellows, with environmentalists and major airlines united to cut down on empty or nearempty flights by pressuring the European Union — a pledged global leader in combating climate change — to tweak the rules on airport slots.

“The EU surely is in a climate emergency mode,” activist Greta Thunberg tweeted sarcastically this week, linking to a story about Brussels Airlines making unnecessary flights.

The company has said that if the EU doesn’t take action, it would have to fly some 3,000 journeys this winter primarily to safeguard its network rights.

German giant Lufthansa said it would have to fly an additional 18,000 “unnecessary” flights through the winter to hold on to landing slots. Even if the holidays brought a big increase in passengers — marked by thousands of flight cancellations that left travelers stranded — the rest of the winter could be slow as omicron surges worldwide.

Landing and departure slots for popular routes in the biggest airports are an extremely precious commodity in the industry, and to keep them, airlines have to guarantee a high percentage of flights. It is why loss-making flights have to be maintained to ensure companies keep their slots.

It was an accepted practice despite the pollution concerns, but the pandemic slump in flying put that in question. Normally, airlines had to use 80% of their given slots to preserve their rights, but the EU has cut that to 50% to ensure as near-empty planes crisscross the sky as possible.

In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration has waived similar minimum slot-use rules through March 26, citing the pandemic. Slots are limited at only a handful of U.S. airports, including Kennedy and LaGuardia in New York and Reagan Washington National outside Washington.

Just last month, when there were still some hopes the pandemic might finally wane, the European Commission confirmed the 50% rule but said it would be increased to 64% at the end of March.

However, major airlines such as Lufthansa, Air France and KLM say they are counting on further flexibility, including further decreasing the threshold level on the time slots.

“More flexibility in the short term is required, not just in summer but also in the current winter schedule,” a Lufthansa statement said. “Without this crisisrelated flexibility, airlines are forced to fly with planes almost empty, just to secure their slots.”

It puts the EU in a bind. On one hand, it needs to ensure that airport slots are open to fair competition, allowing newcomers to vie for them if they are not used sufficiently, and on the other, it wants to keep polluting planes from flying as much as possible.