After more than two years and a half of suspended slot rules in Brazilian airports, the Brazilian government has restored the domestic 80/20 rule for the 2022 winter season, between October 30 and March 25, 2023.
Restoring the slot rule
Earlier this week, Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) published a resolution temporarily changing the monitoring of the use of slots allocated at airports in Brazil. ANAC decided to resume the 80/20 rule in all coordinated airports for the winter season. This rule will only apply to domestic flights, and pre-pandemic rules will apply again, eliminating the waivers that allow airlines to cancel slot use without losing historical rights.
Meanwhile, slots for international operations will continue to be protected from the 80/20 rule, said ANAC. Given the slow recovery of the international air market in Brazil, the waiver will continue during the winter season. The requisites are that the departure and arrival times are from historic slots and the airlines return them at least seven days before the release of the reference base.
According to a report by local media outlet Aeroin, the airline that makes use of the waiver may only reapply for the canceled international slots after 30 days, and subject to the availability of airport infrastructure.
Brazil is restoring the domestic 80/20 slot rule for the 2022 winter season. Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying.
What’s the 80/20 rule?
Slots are a means of managing capacity at airports worldwide. They can be extremely valuable, with some being sold and a very high price (for instance, SAS sold a pair of Heathrow slots for US$60 million in 2015, and Air New Zealand sold one slot at this same airport for $27 million).
Ordinarily, airlines must operate slots 80% of the time to retain rights to them the following year; this is known as the 80/20 rule or the “use it or lose it” rule. This rule was set up to help ensure capacity is used efficiently, particularly in highly congested airports, and prevent carriers from hoarding valuable slots without employing them. Pre-pandemic, there were 204 slot coordinated airports worldwide; annually, 1.5 billion passengers departed from a slot coordinated hub, that was 43% of global departing passengers.
Nonetheless, the COVID-19 pandemic brought a chaotic unprecedented time for the airline industry worldwide. All of a sudden, airlines were operating ghost flights – that is, services with extremely low load factors – to avoid losing their valuable slots. Therefore, governments worldwide suspended the 80/20 rule. Little by little, governments have been addressing the possibility of restoring the “use it or lose it” rule, with Brazil becoming the latest to announce the return of it.
Globally the slot rule was waivered at the start of the pandemic. Photo: Getty Images.
What’s IATA asking?
Last month, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expressed concern that a premature return to pre-pandemic slot use rules in the European Union this winter risks continuing disruption to passengers. IATA has not addressed the subject in Latin America. The European Commission announced it intends to return to the 80/20 slot rule this winter season. While the system has proved effective in managing access, the chaos seen at certain airports this summer took place with a slot use threshold of 64% in Europe, said IATA.
Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General, said the airline industry is “We are worried that airports will not be ready in time to service an 80% threshold by the end of October. It is essential the Member States and Parliament adjust the Commission’s proposal to a realistic level and permit flexibility to the slot use rules. Airports are equal partners in the slot process, let them demonstrate their ability to declare and manage their capacity accurately and competently and then restore the slot use next summer.”
Source: Aeroin.
