How airport slots are allocated

The Airport Management Department is responsible for the supervision and coordination of all activities at international and regional airports/airstrips within the jurisdiction of GACL and ensures the provision of fire cover at the Airports in line with ICAO standards. This department is responsible for slot management in all airports in Ghana.

A landing slot, takeoff slot, or airport slot is a right granted by an airport owner which allows the slot holder to schedule a landing or departure during a specific time period.

Landing slots are allocated in accordance with guidelines set down by the IATA‘s Worldwide Airport Slots Group. Slot allocation is a process that assigns airport arrival and departure time slots in advance to all airlines for planning and scheduling purposes.

Each year, over 1.5 billion passengers – 43% of global traffic – depart from over 175 slot coordinated airports. The number of slot coordinated airports are expected to grow significantly due to a lack of expansion in airport infrastructure to cope with increasing demand.

Landing slots are allocated in accordance with guidelines set down by the IATA’s Worldwide Airport Slots Group. All airports worldwide are categorized as either;

*Level 1 (Non-Coordinated Airport),

*Level 2 (Schedules Facilitated Airport), or

*Level 3 (Coordinated Airport).

IATA is at the forefront of ensuring a fair, neutral and transparent allocation of airport slots at the worlds’ most congested airports through the application of the Worldwide Slot Guidelines (WSG).22

The allocation and use of airport’s capacity

Airport slots are specific points in time allotted for an aircraft to land or take off at an airport.

Where the demand for slots at a particular airport exceeds the available supply, the airport can be considered ‘capacity-constrained’, at which time, a ‘slot allocation’ process is implemented.

The management of airport capacity and slot allocation is essential to ensure efficient access to airports’ infrastructure and resources.

ACI works with governments and regulators to ensure that, when facing congestion, airports play a leading role in the definition of their capacity, its allocation to airlines, and in monitoring its effective use. ACI supports any measure that can improve the efficient use of limited airport capacity to the benefit of the community, airlines and airports.

Airport operators wish to promote the greatest possible efficiency in the use of their infrastructure, which implies the allocation of slots to the airlines that values them most, and will fully use them, according to the allocation outcome.

ACI had created a standing Expert Group on Slots (EGS). The EGS develops worldwide airport policy on slots, acting with the ACI regions.

It works to promote a paradigm change of the current allocation system whereby airport operators must play a leading role in the efficient allocation of slots to airlines as they are best placed to define airport capacity for runways (aircraft movements), terminals (passenger movements) and aprons (number of aircraft parking stands), in consultation with air traffic controllers and other appropriate stakeholders as necessary.

By having the same set of rules at both the departure and arrival airport, the WSG allow airlines to plan their whole network and schedule, and provide choice and connectivity to the passengers.

Growth in air traffic and the need to upgrade, expand and modernize infrastructure at many of the world’s airports poses a challenge to managers of airports.

Whereas in most commercial businesses the pricing mechanism (and any associated economic regulation) is used to balance supply and demand, this is not the case in the airport industry where there is an additional procedure to fulfil this role. Slot allocation is a process that assigns airport arrival and departure time slots in advance to all airlines for planning and scheduling purposes.

The strategic review of the worldwide slot guidelines

The Worldwide Slot Guidelines (WSG) have been developed by IATA and the airline industry over the last 40 years without involving airport operators and their representative organization and without including the airport industry’s view.

ACI committed at global level to work closely with the airlines and the facilitators/slot coordinators to undertake a Strategic Review of the WSG to ensure that all stakeholders benefit from an equitable global process.

This was an ACI initiative at the 39th ICAO Assembly in October 2016 and represents a first global test to improve the global slot allocation process in a fully inclusive manner.

The review is an important opportunity to identify new ways to put in place a truly industry-led governance to improve the slot allocation process at global level. Undoubtedly one of the most challenging of these is the airport slot allocation process.

There are a number of additional criteria that can be considered when allocating these pool slots:

At some airports, when supply exceeds demand (so-called ‘Level 1’ airports) there is usually no problem with the airlines gaining their desired slots.

At other ‘Leve1 2’ airports, demand may be approaching capacity at some peak periods but slot allocation can be resolved through voluntary schedule adjustments.

However, for the remaining Level 3 airports, demand will outstrip supply and this is when formal procedures have to be used to allocate slots.

Overall there are around 170 Level 3 airports worldwide and around an additional 120 Level 2 airports (IATA, 2015c).

The allocation of slots at Level 3 airports is dealt with at IATA Scheduling Committees and Slot Conferences which take place twice a year for the summer and winter seasons.

The most important principle is historic precedence (or so-called ‘grandfather rights’), which means that if an airline operated a slot in the previous season it has the right to operate it again.

This is as long as it meets the slot retention requirements of using the slots for 80 percent of the time (the so-called ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ rule). Slots not allocated by historic precedence or new slots are placed into a slot pool with the aim of half of these going to new entrants.

The allocation of slots at Level 3 airports is dealt with at IATA Scheduling Committees and Slot Conferences which take place twice a year for the summer and winter seasons. Ghana is represented at all slot conferences.

This is an administrative process with a set of guidelines. The most important principle is historic precedence (or so-called ‘grandfather rights’), which means that if an airline operated a slot in the previous season it has the right to operate it again.

This is as long as it meets the slot retention requirements of using the slots for 80 percent of the time (the so-called ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ rule). Slots not allocated by historic precedence or new slots are placed into a slot pool with the aim of half of these going to new entrants.