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A landing slot, takeoff slot, or airport slot is a permission granted by a slot coordinator to use the infrastructure of an
airport
An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...
designated as Level 3 (Coordinated Airport) for
take-off and/or
landing
Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called "landing", "touchdown" or " spl ...
at a specific time and date. Slots should be administered by an independent slot coordinator, often a government aviation regulator such as the U.S.
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...
.
In some countries, airport operators are appointed as coordinators even though they are interested parties.
Slots are allocated in accordance with guidelines set down by the Worldwide Airport Slot Board with 7 members each from
International Air Transport Association
The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is an airline trade association founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences tha ...
(IATA), Airport Council International (ACI) and the Worldwide Airport Coordinator Group (WWACG). All airports worldwide are categorized as either Level 1 (Non-Coordinated Airport), Level 2 (Schedules Facilitated Airport), or Level 3 (Coordinated Airport). At Level 2 airports, the principles governing slot allocation are less stringent; airlines periodically submit proposed schedules to the administrating authority, rather than historic performance. Participation is not mandatory, but reduces congestion and non-participants are penalized if the airport must later be designated level 3.
[Slot Administration - U.S. Level 2 Airports](_blank)
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As of the summer 2022 scheduled season, a total of 156 airports in the world are Level 2 airports, and 195 are Level 3 airports.September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
and during the SARS epidemic, the Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009. , and the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. Maintenance of the rules forces airlines to schedule extra unnecessary flights to keep their slots, wasting fuel; a 2021 expiration of a waiver in the United States was projected to cause 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per day.
Allocated landing slots may have a commercial value and can be traded between airlines. In 2008 Continental Airlines
Continental Airlines (simply known as Continental) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1934 until it merged with United Airlines in 2012. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers.
Continen ...
paid US$
The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...
209 million for four pairs of landing slots from GB Airways at London Heathrow Airport, $m each. The highest price paid for a pair of take-off and landing slots at Heathrow Airport
Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...
was $75m, paid by Oman Air to Air France–KLM for a prized early morning arrival, reported in February 2016. A year before, American Airlines
American Airlines, Inc. is a major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the ...
paid $60m to Scandinavian Airlines
The Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), commonly known as Scandinavian Airlines, is the national airline of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It is part of SAS Group and is headquartered in Solna, Sweden.
Including its subsidiaries SAS Link and ...
. As supply is limited, slot trading became the main solution to enter Heathrow and transfers grew from 42 in 2000 to 526 in 2012 and over 10 years the average priced slot was equivalent to £4 per passenger.
Reform
In the United Kingdom, the Department for Transport has stated the slot system "is not designed to stimulate a competitive market environment and has no means of taking into account broader objectives". Reform could make the system more efficient, competitive and environmentally friendly.
See also
*List of cities with more than one commercial airport
Many cities are served by more than one airport, typically to avoid congestion, and where there may be factors preventing expansion of existing airports. In other cities, multiple airports may be built to cater for different uses, such as internati ...
References
{{reflist
Civil aviation
Flight planning