How The Airport Slot Allocation System Works

Transcript

Petra Popovac:Good afternoon. I'd just like to talk a little bit about slot allocation and how it actually happens. So I'm the CEO of Airport Coordination Australia, or ACA, and we coordinate 42 airports worldwide, so 42 airports in 6 countries. We also have an office in Dublin as well. So I'm sure you're all wondering, what is slot coordination and why do we need it? So slot coordination is providing a service to the airlines and the airports, so coordinating the schedule for the airports. So why do we need slot coordination? We need slot coordination when the demand exceeds the capacity at an airport. So it could be an airport of any size. So I get asked the question all the time, why do you need slot coordination at a smaller airport? These airports may only have 3 international apron positions, for example, but if they get a request from 4 different airlines, then the demand already exceeds the capacity, so that needs to be handled. There we go. So the slot needs to be handled by usually an independent body. So how did a slot coordinator come to be? Slot coordination used to be done by the local carrier. So for example, in Australia, Qantas, back in the 1980s, used to do the slot coordination. And then when more competition came on the scene, the government decided that it would be better for an independent coordinator to do the coordination. So ACA was born in 1997. 1997. with the help of John Sharp, who was just on the panel earlier. So we've been coordinating for 21 years. We started off in Sydney and gradually moved to the rest of Australia. So what we do is we provide an independent slot coordination service. So there's a lot of us that exist around the world in different capacities. So there's 204 airports that are coordinated around the world. Wow. And I'll just give you some stats. There we go. Lovely. So over 1.5 billion passengers are touched by a slot-coordinated airport in a year. That means 43% of global traffic. And 30— sorry, 30,000 routes are also touched by slot coordination. So I think the important thing about slots is that it's not just specific to particular airport, it creates a butterfly effect around the world. So for example, if you're operating a slot, for example, from Sydney to Singapore to Heathrow, you need to get a slot at each of those airports and they all need to match up. So you're operating into 3 very congested airports. Sydney not so much, but Singapore and Heathrow definitely. So for example, if you get your Heathrow slot, fabulous, And then you go to Singapore and you get 10 minutes off in Singapore, and then you get your Sydney slot. You have to go back to Sydney and back to Heathrow to try and work out a slot and a network that actually fits your needs and is also good for the customers as well. So that's what we do at ACA. We try and listen to the airport's needs and also the airlines' needs. As Geoff from Sydney Airport mentioned earlier this morning, it's a collaboration, and we definitely do that, especially over the last few years. As more and more airports get more congested, we need to have a really good communication with the airport and the airlines to most efficiently allocate the available capacity at each of the airports. Here we go. So a definition of a slot. What is a slot? A slot is a permission to use the runways and terminals to operate a flight at a specific time and a specific date. So everybody always asks the question, who owns the slot? The airport thinks that they own the slot because they own the infrastructure that the slot operates to, the aircraft operates to. The airline thinks that they own the slot because they're operating that particular time. And the government thinks they own the slot as well because they own the airspace that the aircraft operates into as well. But it's not actually a tangible thing. It's a permission to operate at a certain time and a certain date. OK. So I'm sure you're all asking, how does this all happen? So we have a worldwide set of industry standards. It's called the IATA World Slot Guidelines, and that's created by myself and 13 other representatives from coordinators and airlines around the world. And basically it's a set of industry guidelines that provides all of the coordinators all over the world and all all of the airlines as well that operate into those airports a set of guidelines to be able to follow. So the WSG is in a particular language so that we all speak the same language and everybody from all over the world can ask the same question and receive the same answer back. So it doesn't matter if you hablas español or sprechen Sie Deutsch or speak English, You can always request a slot and get an answer. It doesn't matter if you're requesting a slot in Manila or requesting a slot in Colombia. So along with this same language, we also have the same process and the same timeline. So it means that if you're requesting a slot in Sydney, you'll also know what slot you're going to get in Hong Kong at exactly the same time. So an airline's not sitting there wondering what they're going to get in Hong Kong because that will affect their whole route network as well. And also being a coordinator, according to the IATA WSG, you need to be fair, transparent, and neutral. And that's why independent coordinators like ACA exist. Because if an airline— so for example, if the national carrier Qantas was doing the coordination, which they used to, I'm sure Virgin and Tiger and RECs would have a bit of an issue with that because obviously they'd be thinking that they'd be getting all the really good slots and giving everything else to Virgin. And if you're an airport coordinating the slots, well, obviously you want the largest aircraft in to get the maximum amount of passengers through the terminal and through the retail and everything like that, which is also great because we're trying to make the most efficient use of the available capacity. But also the WSG gives a chance for for everybody to have access to the airport. So there's a specific set of rules and criteria that airlines have to abide by to A, keep their slot, and B, to be able to operate at the airport. So I also get asked the question about slot auctions that happen at Heathrow, which is always the most interesting part of a speech that I usually give. So an example is Oman Air bought a pair of slots in the morning peak period about a year or 2 ago. We coordinate Muscat Airport as well, so I found out that way. For about $167 million for 2 pairs of slots. I think it was like a 6:00 AM arrival and a 7:30 departure, something like that. So we've got some secondary trading that happens just in Heathrow. So slots are, you know, slots are a very important part of an airline's network planning and airline's operations. So So we played quite a pivotal role in that. So just going through the coordination process flow of what actually happens. So we start coordinating slots about 8 months before the day of operation or before our scheduling season. So we'll receive requests in from the airline. We'll talk to the airports and also the airlines and decide on a set of coordination criteria. So the airport will hand us Coordination criteria basically saying, you know, for example, we have 43 gates available. So coordination is not just runway. A lot of Europeans just do runway, but we do the whole passenger experience. So we look at check-in, security, immigration, baggage, departure gates, apron, and runway. So it's the whole, the whole experience through the terminal. So we work very closely with the airport to make sure that our figures are correct. And So that when we go to coordinate schedules, we know that we're allocating the most amount of available capacity and giving the airlines the best chance at operating at the time that they've requested. Where are we going with that? OK, so I'm going to give you some examples. So we're talking about the Asia-Pacific region, and we're talking about congestion. And so I wanted to give you some examples about one of the airports we coordinate, and that's Manila. I thought I'd pick an international one just for some interest. So we've been coordinating Manila Airport for the last 8 years. We've just signed another 5-year deal with them. Basically, Manila Airport is extremely congested. It's full the whole day, every day. We're completely full from midnight till, you know, midnight pretty much. So— I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What we try and do at ACA, we try and optimise schedules as much as we can to look for opportunities to be able to maximise the use of the available capacity. So what we did is we did an optimisation session with the domestic airlines over there. We managed to align their schedules a little bit better and create a 12% increase in the available capacity for new entrants and also for incumbent airlines as well. If you've got any questions, please come up and see me. I'll be here for the next 10 minutes. Thank you, Petra.

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